“Inside, where it counts, we’re all boats tossed on stormy seas. We’re all a shitty, caterwauling mess when you break out that magnifying glass. I can’t judge anyone because I know how hard it is to be human. Look at the most squared-away person you know and I guarantee they’ll tell you they’re a failure, a wreck of a human, too nervous to live, too weird to succeed. We’re all just fighting to make our way. When you think about it like that how could you not love everyone? How could you not forgive everything short of the unforgiveable? We’re damaged, battered, scared, repressed, besieged by anxiety, agh, what an awful thing to be human. But what a wonderful thing we are! What a thing to love. Do you blame the victim for stumbling through life after they’ve been hurt or do you set your angry glare upon the aggressor? What if we’re all victims? What if everyone is just trying to climb back up to the light after being shoved into a shitty black hole? When you understand that you begin to understand part of what love is—the ability to step back and say, I’m like this too. We’re not so different.”
The above excerpt is from my pocketsize novel Float Me Away Floodwaters. You can get a copy here.