Ain't found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stinging sweat
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Rooster - Alice In Chains
When I first left my hometown twenty years ago, it might be too dramatic to say I ran for my life. Or maybe not. I knew my prognosis for survival was not good then, and I've had no reason to change my assessment of that time since.
Having come back to this place, I find myself bothered by the idea that a young person's sorrow carries little weight. That it's somehow insubstantial or temporary; You're young - you'll get over it. It's not as bad as you think.
From this distance, I can safely say that by the time I was 21, I'd had more grief than I would ever be able to swallow. What had only been a suspicion back then is confirmed with time. No, it doesn't always go away. It's so strange, the way loss can feel like a weight, and more loss is more weight until you can barely breathe. How can absence feel so heavy?
But it does, and since it does, there is no reason it would weigh less for the young.
It's not for my own benefit I say this now - I really am too old to need validation for my feelings. The years have forced me to come to terms with it one way or another. No, it's for the vulnerable ones who are walking that same path, who are going to be reminded that because others might have it worse, they have no right to feel bad at all. That awful phrase where callousness masquerades as compassion.
There is no arbiter of grief who gets to decide how much your suffering matters, though it may certainly seem that way. In my more cynical moments, I would imagine a pain-o-meter that spit out a numerical value for misery. Poverty, homelessness, abuse? Maybe a 3 or 4. Death of a loved one? Higher, but it depends. Rape victim? Oh, shit - you may actually owe us for that one! All of the above? Look, you might want to wait in the other room - your misfortune might be contagious and we can't have that.
No, there is no arbiter of grief, at least here on earth, and thank god for that.
In those days I was pretty and fragile; now I'm old and worn. When I walk down certain streets, I get a little nervous I might encounter my own ghost. Perhaps I want to think my grief was so meaningful as to leave a mark on the place, instead of haunting me alone. That all that pain had meant something, at least. This little forlorn ghost, wandering the downtown streets. I fantasize: what would happen if I met her? I can only hope I'd show compassion.
Acts of compassion mean a lot, even fleeting ones. A woman named Adriana, who'd lost her child, gave me a ride home in a rainstorm. A woman named Linda - calling out in the shimmering heat - reminded me that even though we were strangers, I was still loved. Behind these figures, a formless mass of cruelty recedes. Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but it was everything. It might have even been the difference between life and death in those days, the difference between having the strength to leave a grim situation and giving up altogether.
Perhaps compassion really is everything. Compassion for the lonely, the grieving, the abandoned, the outcast. Compassion for the self, too, even if it seems in short supply. Compassion may create a path out of despair, perhaps it's the only thing that can. Who knows? I'm no expert. But compassion is so easy, there is no excuse not to try.
The first step merely requires recognizing - regardless of age - the validity of another person's suffering.
