Often, people climb mountains only so someone worries and waits for them, and many voyages are made not for the wealth or the gold but for a packed lunch to take along. We all crave care, and you will find that the most important question a person can ask another on most days is, “Did you eat?” Or “Did you sleep alright?”
What is a person, if not someone other people check in on? What is being alive if not being asked to take care, to call or text when you reach, to be told you ought to ask for help? What is living is not being continuously interrupted with love? What is any of it, if not the perpetual and sometimes irritating involvement of other people, of them poking and prodding? What is any of it if not being thought of? To be a person is to be in another person’s mind—sometimes for a second and, often, for a lifetime.
Perhaps the worst feeling in the world is not a brutal heartache. Perhaps it is not having anyone to tell it to. There are far many terrible things waiting around the corner, like a predator hunting prey, but the most terrible thing, I reckon, is if they do happen, if the worst does come to pass, and no one knows about it. And the greatest blessing is not some absurd protection from it all, and it is undoubtedly not a seat in paradise where all things are bright and beautiful. Instead, it is to be thought of, to be called into, to be included and involved, and to be annoyed into belonging.
Tonight, there is little on my mind, and most of it carries no significance. The only part that does is this: I am alive because I am thought of.