At The End Of The Day, All We Want To Know Is That We Aren’t Alone

By Bianca Sparacino

“I think it’s funny how that works,” she said.

“We walk around with these masks. We hide away the parts of ourselves that make us human — the parts that have built us into who we are today, the parts that are the cornerstones of our stories, our lessons, our scars. We tuck away the things that we feel ashamed of — the mistakes we have made, the people we have hurt, the hearts we have walked away from when we should have stayed.

And we ache. My god do we ache; but we never acknowledge the cause of it all. We never acknowledge the heaviness, the emotion within us that we keep to ourselves, the fear that courses through our bones whenever we think about burdening another human being with problems we don’t think they can relate to.

We convince ourselves that we are the only human being in a world of billions, to feel lost at times, to feel lonely. We convince ourselves that people wouldn’t understand the damage within us, the questions that bang against each other in our heads. We convince ourselves that no one has time to listen, that those who ask are only just doing so out of obligation rather than genuine interest.

So we give up too soon. We don’t get to know people, we fear that they will run away the moment…