Dearest Human Who is Worried and Restless about the World

Drawing by Jackie Schuld

I’m sorry you have to experience this anxiety in your chest.

I’m sorry you wake up with concerns on your mind.

I’m sorry there is so little within your control.

I’m sorry you get a latent headache when you think about these things too much.

I’m sorry it’s easy to see what is wrong, but not easy to resolve.

I’m sorry that you don’t want to be another person who just dissociates, and so instead you deal with the impact on your mind and body.

“I’m sorry” is a strange phrase in the English language. It can mean contrition. That we recognize we have done something wrong and are at fault.

And then there is the way I use it now.

To mean, “God, it sucks. I hear you. I feel you.”

Yet when someone says “I’m sorry” to us, that never quite comes across.

There is a hole in our lexicon.

For I mean what I say. I just wish I had a better way to say it.

That I also experience similar pain.

That I wish you didn’t have to suffer.

That I wish our people on this earth and this earth itself didn’t have to suffer.

That I too am maddened by the greed and thoughtlessness of perpetrators.

I do not even have to name the topics. The acts.

You know. We know.

If this was a letter that contained real solutions, I’d be famous. And a wizard. A magician. A sorceress. A witch. All the wonderful things I wish I could be.

But I’m just a letter writer in this moment.

Writing to tell you I am sorry.

And I am sorry that is all I have to offer you in this moment.

With Great Love,

Jackie

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