I believe life has an interesting way to start everyone out with a certain drive—a unique way to look at everything—only to have the world squash it before their eyes. This destruction was not immediate. It was how the leftover rain, falling drop by drop at an inconspicuous stone sitting by itself in the corner, managed to make a hole in it. It was a slow burn; one could rarely mark when it happened. A rock has barely any capacity to perceive the lengths of time, and even with their clocks and calendars, people were only a smidge better.
We did not realise how far we walked from ourselves until we cried, just like the rock broke apart and spilt the last drop, which struck the final blow. Crying was an event so rare in the adult life, at least in my experience, that I remember each breakdown. When I say rare, I don’t mean it wasn’t plenty. I have cried enough since I left home in the standard rite of passage. We pretend we’re different from the other animals as if we don’t act precisely the same way in most things. It was a staple characteristic of life on this planet—to leave the nest.
In any case, I remember each time I have cried since I was handed the reins of my life. I was meek for most of my childhood—too sensitive to most things. I often found myself overwhelmed. Yet, I barely remember all those times now. Of course, memory is fickle, and now that I have written these words down, they will ruffle some old strings, and I will find myself unexpectedly morbid by the evening. When I say I barely remember them, I only mean the moments are not available at my beck and call.
Perhaps, we should cry more often—for sadness, for happiness, for love—so we may not perceive it as something unusual but a regular, rote event no one pays heed to. That is all wishful thinking. For all I know, only in moments of unimaginable heartache did I find the strength to attempt to change things. No, to make them as they were before the world told me how they should be.
Perhaps, all those drops of rain do is tell the rock to move, over and over, and when they realise it cannot do so for it is stuck in its ways, they break it apart so it may become dust and move after all.