I Watch People

I watch people. I watch women with their infants sitting at café tables reading magazines and sipping tea, thankful to be out of the house. I watch them and I wish for their lives. I watch men in their business suits bustle into Starbucks and hastily order coffee to-go, thinking they really don’t have time for the barista’s chit chat. I watch them and I wish for their sense of purpose. I watch the wives of older men, reading books about Europe and dreaming of retirement and what traveling freedom will feel like. I watch them and I hope for the ability to do that before I am old. I watch two girlfriends chatting over cups of coffee, analyzing their relationships endlessly. I watch them and I long for my best friend’s loud voice. I watch the young man making coffee in the bookstore, checking his timepiece as he counts down the minutes until he can see his sweetheart. I watch him and I hope my beloved feels the same urgency for me. I watch the little girl with her father, batting her eyelashes and asking if she can please get two books, instead of the one he promised. I watch her and I remember myself, small and wide-eyed. I watch the old man in his button down shirt and corduroy jacket, brushing the long white strands of hair over to the side, hunting for the cookbook his wife keeps talking about. I watch him and I hope for such lasting love.

I watch people. I see relationships all around me, in this city where I am alone. My relationship to every person I see is stranger. That word is not so scary as it was once. When I think of strangers now, I am a little bit glad for my privacy. And then I’m suddenly overwhelmed with loneliness and wish someone would feel the need to meet me. See, I’m smiling at you; don’t I look nice?

The things that are most important to me are relationships. The things I enjoy watching most are relationships. The things I talk about most are relationships. My spirituality is a relationship. Eternity is based on a relationship. Human interaction in nature is a relationship. Our wounds that are deepest are all based in relationship, in frailty and failure. I find the human experience so very unique from person to person; then again, we are all so much the same. We all feel so deeply and long to be loved in a way that is not conditional. And so it is relationship that is always current, always the most important thing.

I have found, in the process of growing up, that relationships change. Sometimes that change is the hardest thing. The most difficult changes are the trees with the most brilliant colors, because they were given the most nourishment, the most rain, and therefore must change the most. It is my childhood that is falling away, and my innocence. As the cold winds are blowing through my leaves, my heart and my mind, I am coming to understand that the sunshine of summer, the verdant and lush prosperity, is not constant. The dreams I had as a little girl of riding off into the sunset on a white horse are only the beginning. It’s what happens when the sun is down, when the trees are bare, that defines a life. Growing up means facing the starkness of the seasons and learning that when we find someone to help us put our jacket on, walking beside them in the coldest storm can keep us warm. There will be different companions on different parts of the walk, but I hope for that one who is constant, even as others join us and depart.

I guess what I’m saying is, while I still dream of Prince Charming and long for the fairy tale, I understand now that my life will not be that way. There is no perfect man, no perfect life. This world, this tragic world, is full of the walking wounded. Everyone has hurt, everyone needs more love. Just as my parents’ wounds created new ones in me, I will create new wounds in my own children. I will bring joy to the life of my husband, yes, but I will also make his life more difficult in some ways. We will assume that there will be damage; we will undoubtedly inflict it upon each other. We will guarantee hardship, we will guarantee moments of regret, but we will also guarantee love in the midst of it all. Because that is the only hope there can really be—love.

My utmost purpose in life can be no greater than to bring hope, bring hope by love.