Morning Kindness in Quarantine.

It’s 6:28 in the morning, and I can see from my window the orange washes of the sun, peaking behind the trees. I had an amazing dream, and I have that strange feeling of freshness that only days like this can conjure in me.

This year has been tough, and last month was the toughest, but it felt like an opportunity to grow, in the same way that moss grows on fallen logs, or you can feed flowers with compost. The time was just there. There’s many conversations that I hadn’t listened to, as if I had been half-asleep inside as well. I let every thought visit, the dark and the sunny ones, and we hang out for an entire month, with some fears parading themselves among the good, and making funny faces.

One of my findings was very simplistic. I am not strong enough to take care of others, and that saddens me a little. I want to be like the people I admired growing up, and be able to help and protect the ones I love. I guess deep down I want to be a big daddy, and get all fat, and have a big family that adores me just like I adore people. I thought it was more complicated, but that explains my gift giving tendencies and why I spend most of my measly salary on others. So that is another dream, to one day be the man I want to be.

The world is chaotic and scary, now more than ever, and I always thought that by trying to make big changes one could contribute more, so I never valued the small things. I have been too severe with me all these years. I have never been scared for myself, or be afraid of death, but I have always been terrified of things happening to others, and I know there is people out there that don’t have the same ways of weathering storms that I have. I want to make it less chaotic and scary for some.

Kindness is more beneficial than anything I had ever tried to treat myself with for my bouts of low mood. Kindness to yourself and others. It’s like a light in the dark. I had always been very disappointed with myself, and watched with fascination how things could spiral all the way down, and I could sit there with my chair, and ask myself, “Well, how is he going to make it out this time?” I licked my wounds again and again. I forwent any coping mechanisms, and embraced everything head on. It was a hard month, but it was a good one, too.

I guess is like unclogging a pipe, it will clog again, but at least you got everything out of there, and it goes down fluidly. I was always ashamed of crying, and I never mourned things, about my before, or my now, there was no use in revisiting, I believed. But I did, and I felt like at the beach, sitting where the waves, as they go to and fro, washing me away. When all this ends, but not too soon, I will go to the beach, and watch the waves. I haven’t seen the sea in a decade. I will make sure of bringing sunscreen, because of my hundreds of moles, but I will be there.

To everyone that is struggling, particularly those dealing with maladies of the heart, I can tell you this: the going gets tough, but we are all in the same boat. If you have someone you know is alone, call them. It’s sometimes the small things that make lasting changes. Kindness is cheap and renewable and can be used in most instances. In most of them.

After one month of that, and after I had answered too many questions I didn’t want to ask, I woke up one day, and the heaviness was less. I don’t know how long it will last, but it’s like the Fall of 2012, the best six months of my life. That sense of hope. I think it’s like putting clothing on a line to dry, I will do it now, and even if there’s some rainy days, you just wait. This year is going to be good, after all. I don’t see many clouds.