"The greatest cruelty is our casual blindness to the despair of others." - Depends on who you ask, could be Straczynski, could be La Dispute.
When I was nine years old, I fell off my bike and broke my right wrist — a true cliché. My knee — skinned to the bone — was fine until the white turned to red and dripped down my calf, painting my white converse red. My neighbor found me crying and scootered me back to my mother, my bike left unstrung and broken and bruised on their sidewalk. I cried the whole way home. My mom brought around the first aid kit: band-aids, Neosporin and mint chocolate chip ice cream. Between sobs and spoonfuls, I told my mom about my arm. “It must be a sprain," she soothed, "You would be crying much harder if it was a break.” So I repressed the ache in my right wrist, leaving my arm unstrung and broken and bruised. A week later — after being sent home for not being able to write on the right — my mom took me to get an x-ray. It was positive for a break. My mother cried, feeling a sense of responsibility for not taking me in sooner. I forgave her. As they wrapped my cast, I soothed back, “You are super mom, but you don’t have x-ray vision."
When I was 12, I felt a crush for the first time. He was tall, favored and goofy while I was short, scrawny and different. He was going out with the girl who called me “chicken legs” during recess, but he wasn't like her. In April, this boy stopped showing up to school. I figured he became sick, until he returned and told me his mom had passed away, leaving him unstrung and broken and bruised. After some time, we developed a connection of mutual feelings for each other, and he stood as my best friend for years. We were about to move into the seventh grade, and I felt like it was time we kissed. He felt the same way. So he made a move and kissed my best friend, leaving me unstrung and broken and bruised.
When I was 17, I fell in love with my best friend. I spent months being flaunted at parties and basketball games, loving him, loving me. I loved being twirled on the way to class and being kissed — every day — before second period. I loved the love, attention and butterflies. It was all doodles and daydreams and devotion until New Year's Eve when I found incriminating texts between him and his ex, leaving me unstrung and broken and bruised.
For years I've searched for the proper cast. I've combed for the equivalent comfort of gauze, and rummaged for a comparable substitute of support for plaster and fiberglass. Where was the cast for the unstrung and broken and bruised heart left on the sidewalk at 12 years old? Or the deserted and discolored and defenseless heart left on the floor of confetti, champagne and kisses at 17? Where was my neighbor with her scooter and my mom with her first aid kit when I was unraveled and vulnerable and exposed for all to see and stab and sting? And since when was it human nature to scam and scheme and sadden? Where were the reverent and reliable and righteous?
In every dark corner or dimmed alleyway, stuffed in under-the-staircase cupboards or kitchen junk-drawers, within every nook, cranny, alcove and the 15 other synonyms for the word "corner," the answer was indeed found inside. The reverent, reliable and righteous, the scammers, stabbers and stingers, the vulnerable, exposed and disheartened and the unstrung, broken and bruised are here and within and among. We are the good and evil, the content and complacent, the altruistic and acquisitive. We envelope these mannerisms and we follow these behaviors, but we also make a conscious effort to choose which acts we follow. It only takes a split second to look within and fine-tune our sights for kindness. It is human nature to scam and scheme and sadden, but it's also human nature to flourish and pledge and grace. The secret I searched for cannot be pinpointed to a particular space. The secret is found within ourselves. The secret is choosing to grow and give and grace. Choose the benevolent side of humanity, for the greatest cruelty is our casual blindness to the despair of others.
