Humanness

Initially, I imagined that he acted the way he did towards me merely because he wanted to see what sort of reaction it would evoke in me. Just for the fun of it. Possibly out of spite. He seemed like an elusive sort; with so many contacts with people of the opposite gender, and a rather abrasive nature whenever he was in a bad mood or felt like being difficult.

I didn't think it could've possibly crossed his mind how much hurt and turmoil he had inflicted on my soul. How, with every little cheesy thing he said, he was making my heart crumble. Drilling to the core of my weakness. And I almost loathed meeting him every time. It felt like something inside of me was squirming and making me sick on the inside every time I saw him, every occasion in which I had to exchange words with him. He was, after all, to my mind, unpredictable. Cocky. Immature. Irritating.

Difficult he was, indeed. But maybe, so was I?

What I hadn't counted on was the fact that he had - in the ongoing turn of events in his private life - a set of challenges, setbacks and excruciating heartbreaks of his own. I only knew in part, saw in part.

And the more the truth unfolded, the more I realised that perhaps he's not the spiteful, cunning, conniving, selfish guy that I imagined he was. Perhaps he did care. Perhaps he did occasionally intend to offer real help to me, and did also, at some point, value my company...

The truth of the matter is, that we really don't understand what's going on in somebody else's life at all. We presume to comprehend it, but often what we do know is only so little in the face of the full blown realities that strike them each day. The nightmares. The fears, the glaring past that perhaps they still have problems overcoming, or leaving behind. The secrets. The things they wished to pour out to us, but haven't yet found the courage and suitable opportunity to.

And beneath that smile, that same calm expression that you see them wear every day, there lies a restless soul... fighting to stay alive and to make sense of what is going on.

We assume too much.

I find it ironic that sometimes the people we think we know so well, the people we spend the most time with, are the people that we know the least about. It's scary. More than that, it's downright sad.

And when a sudden twist of events changes the way they are, or the way we relate to them, we look back at how things were and wonder why we didn't understand better before.

Yet the one good thing that comes out of having known someone for quite awhile and knowing more about them now than you did then is that maybe, in some way, you realise more than before how human they really are. Not so tough and impossible as how they seemed previously. In fact, very much vulnerable. So you stand back a little, and gaze at them now in a new sort of awe...

Then maybe, just maybe, you chance to love them a little more.

I so totally agree with Carson McCullers...

The heart is a lonely hunter.