Heartbreaking.

So today, in an effort to avoid my art homework for as long as possible, I was looking online at a website called lettersillneversend.com. The whole point of the site is to allow people to write and posts letters anonymously without having to send them to their actual recipients. I’ve seen this site a few other times but haven’t really spent much time looking around, but for some reason today I was very interested.

As I began reading, I was initially just interested. Curious and nosy, really. I wanted to know what people had to say, what sort of things they would write without the pressure of having to say their words exactly right or make sure they got their point across, because the person that the letter was meant for would never read it. So the first few pages I just skimmed through the topics, and stopped to read the ones that sounded interesting.

Then I began to read all the letters on each page, and it was simply heartbreaking. The stories people told of their pain and their sorrow, and their hopelessness. One letter was written for the author’s mother, telling their mom all about their awful past with drugs, drinking, and everything those substances had caused to go wrong in their life. This letter, along with many, many others, included the author crying out to their deafened audience in a muted voice. They weren’t allowing themselves to actually send it to someone who could help, but instead simply posting it somewhere in hopes to feel a bit of relief by admitting it to a nameless abyss. The majority of the letters I read were written by broken people, searching for a source of hope and relief. Whether they had been broken through abandonment, judgment, hopelessness or fear, it didn’t matter. Something had broken them, and they were left trying to pick up the pieces.

Reading those letters made me so sad and heavy-hearted, and I wish I could do something to help. It made me think about all those people I come into contact with every day, and what they could be hiding. I think back over all the times I have been so quick to judge someone, and I wonder how many times I have been the one to make things seem even worse to the recipient of my harsh judgment.

I never know where other people are at in their lives, so who says it’s up to me to decide what kind of person they are? No one, that’s who. I certainly hate feeling judged and condemned by those around me, so why on earth would I do that to someone else? Something has got to change.

Ugh.

Gotta love those reality checks.