Here’s what I realised after spending enough days walking in a daze. I realised I’m not a great person. I’m not a warm light of laughter on most days. On most days, I’m a stubborn grey cloud floating all by itself over a colourful meadow, taking things a bit too seriously, losing myself in my head for hours, and sometimes managing to crawl my way out of it, barely.
Yet, I realised my going back to every mistake I had ever made, my obsession with doing things correctly, and my fixation on making things right with as many situations as I could warrants that I am a good one. While calling yourself good is not without the ego that comes with it, I learned that I’m humble enough to understand that this clarity will last some five days before I start to feel a shake in my legs again.
I know I’ll fall on the floor again and again and again because it’s my nature. I cannot let some things stay where they belong: in the past. I have never lived in the future or the present. I am someone who runs to catch up with today not tomorrow. I am someone perpetually living in what has already happened in the tiny history of me, so I can be the one who makes sure it doesn’t happen again.
I learned that there were others like me—millions—who tried so hard to pull things together, who went the extra mile for strangers, who continually beat themselves up about the tiniest of flaws, who craved being of use to those around them in any way possible, and who often lost their way and forgot who they were.
I learned that as much as everyone enjoyed the bright sun, and as much as everyone needed the sunshine, it were the silver linings that kept them going, and for the silver linings to exist, the clouds were as important, if not more, than the sun. We were reminders that the sky wasn’t always sunny, and yet, that was okay as long as you floated on.
Sometimes, we were exactly what the world needed.