Binders

One of the best gifts I ever got was a book of quotes from my friend Meredith. And while just a plain ol’ “someone famous said this” style of quote book would have been nice, this was a book she made filled with actual quotes she had collected said by a group of us who worked together. She made copies for each of us and the pages captured moments of conversations we’d had over about a year’s time. Whenever I read those words I can hear the voices behind them and remember the moments they represent. In their own way, those words are more powerful than photographs for how they capture the blush of that time.

I hadn’t known it until then, but Meredith is a quote junkie. She collects quotes from famous people and friends alike. And while you may wonder about the attraction in other people’s words, Meredith sums her fascination up as such:

“Here's what I think: Quotes are therapy. Finding the perfect quote for the way you feel just means that, at some point, someone else was thinking what you're thinking, and you're not alone.”

And while she didn’t know it, that quote of hers perfectly describes one of the main reasons I write these…thingies. Whatever they are. To discover or to inform that some experiences are universal. At some point, someone else was thinking what I was thinking, or what you are thinking. That we are not alone.

Odds are, you haven’t experienced all of these things. But probably, at some time in your life, you have --or will have-- experienced one of them. Births, deaths, love, loss, failure, need, apathy, ambition, embarrassments and nostalgia are trans-cultural, universal things. But at the time they can still feel so isolating, so lonely. It can feel as if no one else has ever felt that hurt or ever experienced such love.

But then, in writing about it, I usually find that someone, somewhere connects with what I wrote. Not a lot of someones, but I’m not building an army here. I’m just looking for proof than none of us are alone in this.

Each post is like sending up a flare-- either in response to something I see someone else experiencing or something I’m struggling with myself-- and more often than not someone will pull over to the side of the information super highway and pause long enough to give assistance in the form of a kind word or some helpful feedback.

Just knowing that these moments--the big ones, the small ones, and the ones that require a really strong carpet cleaner-- aren’t mine but rather ours is empowering in a vital way. These are the things that bind us. Though the names and faces and details may change, we are all living different variations of the same stories again and again.

To quote Meredith, “…you’re not alone.” And these things remind me that neither am I.