Connection

I find it fascinating how much we split ourselves apart. How we describe what we like with small tags under our profile pictures. All the roles we invented to categorize what we do, to build our identities around work. The labels we put on us for liking who we like. I could go on endlessly, but my point is: we break up ourselves in parts so each can fit in.

What about the rest? What about that shy little kid who loved to lay in the grass and look up at the clouds for hours counting? Or the one writing poems in the back of their notebooks. The one taking photos nonstop until there was not one stone left to capture.

We compromise so much of us, eliminating the whole of what we actually are. A person. A human. A soul wrapped in skin. Innocent children who simply want to play.

Why do I root my worth more in the opinion of an online-stranger than in affirmations of my closest friends? I am so scared to talk to someone about how I sincerely feel. It’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to. And yet, I yearn to feel nervous about it. To touch into all emotions right before I pour out my heart.

Genuine human connection. We all crave it. But we don’t know how to form it. Vulnerability, rawness, tears, hugs, poems, art, letters—that’s what I want more of. Need more of. To see each other as whole, as an individual life intertwined with ours if we choose to care enough.