the feeling
The feeling was stepping out of my back office, hearing a baby wailing, and realizing that that baby was not our baby — it was a neighbor’s baby. That someone else was dealing with this bullshit.
Not because I want other people to deal with it, but simply because I don’t want to deal with it.
And even that’s not true. It’s more that I’m just glad to be in a world where I’m not the only one who feels that.
Maybe it’s not even that. Maybe it’s just that it feels nice to know that we’re not the only ones — who I’m always worried that we are.
the realization
The things that you wish your parents had done with you, for you, they wish that too. It’s not like they don’t. It’s just that there’s so much that stands between them and everything they want. And they’ll tell you that story if you want to listen to it.