We are born knowing that a call for help is harder to ignore when it is loud and shrill and persistent.

In a world like this one, one voice on its own doesn’t seem like it can make much of a difference.

So many people don’t like to speak up for themselves or ask for what they need because they feel scared or ashamed. Their voices are missing from the cacophony, and so the cacophony isn’t as loud.

The folks who carry on in silence might be less ashamed and scared if they knew they weren’t alone. And there are few things that can stave off the loneliness like seeing yourself in somebody elses’ story. There are few things as comforting as hearing somebody say, “I’ve been there too. I’ve needed this kind of help too.”

Knowing that there’s even one other person who needs the same kind of help that I do makes it so much easier to ask.

As more of us speak up, it will get harder for the folks who’ve been entrusted with our care to ignore us. They could go on ignoringing us for a long time, if they’d like to. They could ignore us for hundreds of years – they know how. But that only ever makes them look like bad caretakers.

Before there are protests, before there is any solid promise to vote for, before there is legislation, before there is change, there is storytelling. That’s where it begins.

So tell your stories whenever you can, complete with all their human complicated messiness. Whenever it’s safe.

Laugh. Break down crying. Sing. Cook some food. Spin a yarn. For fuck’s sake, write.

Take all the regrets, all the relief, all of the awful halting indecision, all of the cold detached decision making, all of the love and the mistakes and the discomfort and the longing, and put it into a story.

Go out and build a safe place for that storytelling to happen. Build it slowly, and carefully, with your own hands. Maybe it’s a friendship, or a comfy room, or a book in the library, or a song.

Never underestimate the importance of making another person feel seen and understood. That feeling changes everything.

In the meantime, we’ll go on getting by as best we can.

–

I heard this argument first from a friend whose name is Emma. I think it’s a beautiful take.