Tag: vulnerability

Kobe

I’m not sure how I want to compose myself for this. Frankly, I don’t know what’s right. I wasn’t going to say anything publicly about this because I don’t know if I should, or what’s best. But, I feel compelled to write something, so that’s what I’m doing.

Yesterday Kobe Bryant died holding his baby girl. I break to write that sentence because the thought of it literally tugs my breath into my lungs and I can’t breathe. I didn’t know Kobe. I didn’t really watch him play basketball. He wasn’t on my radar until every media channel was flooded with his and Gianna’s, his 13-year-old daughter’s face. Yet, I still feel this deep loss that aches. Bluntly, something so horrible is pushed in front of our faces and we can’t take our eyes off of it because it is so horrible, so bizarre, and so real.

A superhero figure was taken down and the entire world shook. When I first heard the news, memories flooded my mind of playing basketball with my elementary students and hearing them yell “Kobe” as they shot each shot. Every single shot. I think about what the shake feels like to them.

I can’t even imagine what his family is going through, god I can’t even imagine. It hurts thinking about that.

When horrible things like this happen first we think about those involved, and then their family members and the people close to them. And then we turn it around into our own lives. We think about how we would feel if this happened to us or someone we know. We try to put ourselves in their shoes, I guess that’s a way we try to understand such a pain.

We see a perspective that we have been aware of in the past but now are forced to see it with a clarity that is so close to home. Life is short, and it’s not promised. All of us were slapped in the face with this reality when we heard the details of the helicopter crash. When we hear something so awful, we gasp, we take air into our lungs. It’s like we’re clinging onto the instinct to live. To feel. Bad things happen in the world every day. We forget this, and we even turn our heads away from it. But this, this snapped our heads back into place where they should be with a reality that is so true, so real. Right now we are living but we don’t know about any second further.

Sometimes I don’t know how to live each day as if it’s my last. Sometimes I don’t know how to cherish every moment and make sure everyone in my life knows that I love them. Sometimes I don’t know how to feel when shit like this happens so mainstream that it rips into every city in America. Sometimes I wonder if I should feel bad for crying for someone I never knew because I feel like I’m not worthy to cry for them, to feel something for them. But, my face contorts anyways and I’m just glad I’m alone while I write this. I don’t know how to relate when something like this happens.

But, for me, it feels natural to cry about this. It feels natural to hurt, to think about Kobe’s family. It feels natural to reflect upon my life and wonder if I’m doing what I should be doing. It feels natural for me to want to call up my people and tell them that I just love them.

As a humanity, we need to feel, we need to live. This horrible accident reminded us all of the importance of this. Hug your people. Love who you love. Try your fucking best and be who you want. Fill your days with what brings you joy. I wish this wasn’t the way we got our wake up call, but when something like this happens we should listen, fuck, we need to listen.

What Matters: The long ride after the longest ride.

This is a new segment of my blog. It’s called What Matters.

Millennials are supposedly the loneliest generation. We have the luxury of connecting with each other in more ways than what has been possible in the past. With the emerging of the internet and social media, we can connect with humans across the world from us, instantaneously. So, why are we so lonely?

We live in a society where no one talks about their real life. Maybe it’s from the stigma and shame of vulnerability. We think no one wants to know how we are really feeling, so we respond with “I’m good, how are you?” 

We choose to show how we want to be seen by posting our active moments, our adventurous selves, and our beautiful faces on social media. We cover our blemishes, our scars, with filters. Even those not participating in the social media world put filters on themselves and what they share with others. Nobody gets that close to anyone. What we give are the good looking framed pieces of our lives. 

So, this segment is meant to shed light on the real moments of life. On the moments that we don’t talk about, the moments that we don’t think anybody cares about. Really, the moments that we are scared to share. Because life is not all good. We forget that we all lose our cool sometimes. This is not meant to be a pity party, or me venting, but to show pivotal moments in my life that are real, are ugly, and even embarrassing. Because I am not just the filtered cropped pictures on my socials, and neither are you. If we share ourselves with each other more, really become transparent with one another, we may realize that we are more relatable with each other than we thought. From there, maybe we can beat the loneliness that consumes our generation.

Every moment in our life matters. Our feelings matter. The small things matter.

So, I want to share my moments. Because they mean something to me. I might leave out the backstory. I might leave it vague. But, I aim to share some small parts of my story, my life, that would normally get shoved under the rug and never spoken about. 

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THE LONG RIDE AFTER THE LONGEST RIDE

Sitting there, after ripping my own heart out just hours ago, I hold a carnation given to me by a stranger. I feel every bump of the shuttle ride. I shift around my backpack on my lap and stare at a spot on the floor.  I feel eyes on me by the people sitting across from me. I know they can tell I’ve been crying. I let it stain my face. I don’t care. I sit there with a broken heart and a shattered frame of mind, flower in hand. When I get home I put the flower in a glass of water. The next morning it starts to show signs of wilting. The next day even more so. I let it sit on my kitchen table until it bends low below the rim of the glass, dead in a puddle of water.

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