Dirty Laundry.

Everyone has it. Everyone leaves it on the empty bed and closes the door so no one will see it when they come over. No one wants to face it, fold up each part of their life and put it away because it doesn’t belong there anymore. But we know as we sit in the living room watching tv, it’s there waiting for us to hang it all up. Or how about when we get dressed and we’re looking for a piece we can’t find because it’s lost in the pile on the bed that we’re waiting to deal with until we absolutely have to...

But what if we felt more comfortable handling our pain and mistakes? Rather than making each other feel like we were on the world’s pedestal of judgment, we acknowledge our own shortcomings and frailty as we recognize others’. A place where their pain becomes our mirror. Instead of pretending like we have none because of our own fears that we’ve created as a defense mechanism to the rejection, the betrayal, the abandonment. Like if we were all genuinely ourselves all the time, how little energy we could put into pointing out everyone else’s follies because ours were just as transparent. And even if no-one ends up doing it, at least the honesty you’ve offered up would do justice to the brevity of life as a human being. How much more worth it existing becomes when you’re bravely being exactly who you are. What you did, the choices you made, the influence you absorbed, the directions you’ve pursued. Living it all as is. The inspiration you could be to others who feel like their past is too shameful to wear on their sleeves. The evolution you can propel for them by extending validation, reassurance or kindness when we know that nobody owes it. Just an act of love, filled with intent and humanity.

I think the problem is that we’ve become too good at fallaciously making ourselves feel better by thinking our dirty laundry is not as bad. “At least the way I do things works for me”... until it doesn’t anymore. Then what? We are no better than the others we have ostracized, dismissed or dropped the opportunity to help where instead we judged with red hands. I always say life has a merciless way of humbling us. The higher the highs, the harder the fall will be when we hit the lows - but the lows are inevitable. I’m not sure of a lot of things, but the lows are definitely coming. The funny thing is, everyone is hurting. Everyone is literally just coping in the best way they know how. Some are a little further along than others, but we all have good days and we all have bad days. For some of us, life’s been on fire for years and for others, the temperatures and winds are still setting to kindle the inferno. Something I keep reminding myself of too. That having two mixed children by two different men in an Indo-Caribbean household isn’t the end of the world. That subjecting my family, who did the best they could, to that shame is forgivable. That me abhorring motherhood at times is normal.

Grappling with life is overwhelmingly hard for everyone, no matter the timing. But share or be the ear. It lightens our burdens and reminds us we are not alone. Sometimes that’s enough to change the world.