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Lost in his eyes, in the hurt they held, in the clench of his jaw, and the answer to his pain on his un-telling lips, he whispered to me. “I can’t say those things.”
“Then I won’t stop asking you.”
He hung his head and let out an audible breath. “It’s not your job to care about me.”
“See, this is where I disagree.” I reached over and gripped his hand and gently squeezed it. He tensed slightly. “What made you lay next to me in that hammock?”
“I don’t know.” He bit his lip as he browsed through his thoughts. “You were in pain. You were crying. It was the most agonizing sound I’d ever heard.”
“Okay, well what I saw in those eyes of yours the day you got here is the worst pain I’ve ever witnessed, Ian Kemp. And it’s everybody’s job, isn’t it?”
I slid my thumb over the top of his hand. “I mean, we are all just extras sipping coffee in the background of someone else’s life. But that could change at any second. If I wanted to, I could put my coffee down and become responsible for you. We are all responsible. We could all choose to take responsibility, couldn’t we? Human compassion. What the hell happened to that?”
Ian pressed his brows together while I got lost in my thoughts.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed before I finally snapped out of it and slowly pulled my hand away. Ian’s twisted face was a thing of beauty. I felt the blush creep through my cheeks at my rant and then even more so by his close scrutiny.
“Never mind, I’m talking nonsense to you. Goodnight.”
He opened his mouth to speak, maybe to address one of the hundred questions I saw in his eyes but kept them to himself and instead responded with a curt, “Goodnight.”
Great, Koti, way to go. You sounded like a philosophical moron.
Taking my leave, I walked across the sand and back to solitude where I felt safer with my own ramblings. I felt his watchful eyes on me from where he stood on his porch. Maybe I should have been more embarrassed and a little more careful with the words I spoke. But in the last year of my life, I’d recognized my flaws and the depth of my narcissism while I licked my own wounds. After a hard look, I didn’t like a tenth of what I’d become. I saw my flaws, my differences and discovered a few of my strengths too. I was done with certain parts of myself that were a product of expectation. And what was left was a woman who embraced vulnerability, her idiosyncrasies, her ticking clock, and treacherous body.
In a way, I was proud for speaking up, especially to a man who was afraid to show his own defeat and weakness. If I had to write the story of my life post-apocalyptic Koti Vaughn, it would be of a story of hope.
It would be human. And that’s all I wanted to be. Striving for perfection had cost me enough sanity.
THERE’S A NAME FOR HUMAN awareness and it’s called Sonder.
The definition: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground. It’s a pocket in time, where you may redefine life by the idea of the struggle of others.
My time in my own purgatory, battling my anxiety and the crumble of my planned future had taught me to reflect not only on my own mess but on the life of my parents and their triumphs and failures. And after that in-depth analysis where I had to forgive them and myself, I paid close attention to everyone I came in contact with. It changed me in a way I couldn’t ignore. It was a deep, emotional cleansing and one that I could never take lightly.
Everyone, at some point in their life, gets lost in their own head, whether it be a low or high point where they are looking down at the path they’d chosen. This type of reflection led me to the train of thought that brought me to revisit my first substantial memory.
My first foggy recollection as a child was getting stung by a wasp. I remembered being too small to open the door of my parents’ Hamptons house and the relief I felt when my mother rescued me. I remembered her quieting my cries as she looked down at me with tender eyes and a soothing voice while she sprinkled powder on my bite to get the sting out. And I remembered very little after, just the lingering feeling that I was safe.
In searching through those memories, I remembered a bike ride on top of the handlebars and somewhere between that, a string of nights spent with my mother in bed when I got the flu. She’d kicked my father out of their room and slept with me. I could still feel her cold hands on my hot back. A few childhood friends drifted through my memories as well, not exact memories but words and gestures, indistinct moments in places I couldn’t remember. One of my classmates had died of pneumonia. She had blonde curly hair and big dimples. When she passed, I was observed by the adults around me in such a way I knew I was expected to grieve. Because of that expectation, I pretended to cry, but the concept of death was lost on me. I recall feeling bad as the casket was lowered to the ground because I felt nothing and everyone around me wasn’t pretending. Their tears were real. It was the first time I felt guilty.
Everyone had those moments, where those bits and pieces surfaced, and memories were triggered, some of them more significant than others. Some of them a mystery as to why they stood out from the rest. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, twenty-four hours in a day. What would I remember when I was forty?
It seemed incomprehensible no matter how well you know another person, that you could never fully understand them, and what memories they kept and why they were significant. I had no idea what my friend’s name was that passed away, no idea whose handlebars I was riding on, but I do know the most vivid childhood memory I held was the day I met Ian Kemp.
“Good morning.”
Ian greeted me as I stood on my back porch sipping a cup of coffee in light cotton sleep shorts and the same cami I had on the night before. The waves rolled in and crashed against the rocky shore in front of me. I was far too deep in my reverie to do anything more than lift my cup and give him a low reply. “Morning.”
“Listen,” Ian said, stepping off his porch and making his way toward me, forcing me back into the moment. Delighted that his shirt was inevitably off, his newly tanned feet made good time between our houses. He stood on the bottom step of my porch, his back to the rail as he followed my line of sight and studied the waves with me. “Last night. You took me by surprise, but I want you to know I understood what you were saying.”
“Okay.” I rolled my eyes as I wrapped my arms around myself, still holding my cup as a buffer between us. No matter how determined I was to be unapologetic about my newly adopted philosophies, I still felt a bit self-conscious about sharing that new part of myself, about voicing my thoughts to those who might not be so receptive or understanding.
“There’s no reason to get defensive.”
I shrugged, looking down at my cup. “Sorry.” I didn’t want to reveal more than I already had, but I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t slightly embarrassed. “I haven’t ever really said those things out loud. But if you are thinking I’m the weirdo hippie with healing crystals, who is walking around concerned about higher consciousness, you are barking up the right tree.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking,” he said softly.
