BROKEN BORROWED PEOPLE

Hi You,

I have been taking many short trips in the last months, and it has been interesting how my thought process has evolved. It occurred to me while journaling the simple truth about the significance of a home. I put it this way in my journal, “now I know why home is important, travelling is like being everywhere and belonging nowhere. It is the same with places as it is with people.”

When I wrote those lines in my journal, it was in expression of a feeling I was trying to process but was unable to articulate in my thoughts. I figured writing would help with clarity. Instead, I found an expose about people. I realized that each person we meet is already carrying other people within them in their memories and their experiences. In essence, everyone we may chance a connection with is borrowed in the sense that they are not brand new (made for just us. Ok, maybe babies but even them get imprinted on pretty quickly so that doesn’t count).

At the time I was writing down these thoughts, I was more preoccupied with the innate desires of a person to belong to a safe place, to be desired, loved, and cherished, to be someone’s most important person… I mean this in the romantic and companionship sense. There is a sacredness that comes with finding your own connection and making a home with a person. Nothing beats the privilege of finding your own person.

As I let this thought stew in my mind, I started to explore all the other realities hidden in this message my mind was trying to communicate with me. The fact that we are all broken borrowed people. I know this phrasing seems fragile and suggest weakness but we are in fact humans, ephemeral.

I initially thought this post was about love and companionship but now I realize the inherent message I intend to pass across is about how we brandish our memories, how we take ownership, and how we try to make possessions of things that were only made to be temporary.

We over estimate our worth believing that all things will flow just as we let ourselves picture it. Life is not that picturesque and it comes with more disappointments than we may be prepared to handle…If only we can learn to accept that our struggles start with our perceptions, our need to hang on too tightly; to seek safety even when we are conscious of the illusion that such mentality presents.

The things we seek, the people we want to hang on to so much are in and of themselves imperfect too…maybe if we come to accept our frailty, maybe if we can let ourselves see all the flaws present in ourselves and others we will not over glorify our worth or feel the need to compare ourselves with the perfect illusion of others we create in our minds and expectations. The people we admire as excellent carry traumas too, face fears, battle insecurities, and feel inadequate from time to time. No one is that calm or unperturbed no matter what font they show outwardly…

The dilemma about writing on a subject matter like this is that there is no way to end it, there is no inspirational quote that may adequately describe the severity of the expose. It is a subtle reminder and a call to a reality that we may, in fact, be incapable of.

The struggle is immeasurable and personal, embedded in our day to day life…