Strangers give us the kind of advice we’re too guarded to get from our closest friends.

I’m sitting at a coffee shop, writing this, and of course, listening to the conversation that these two guys are having next to me. They are bundled up in sweaters, sipping tea with lemon, and have no idea that I’m listening. But I am. I’m bored. Their voices are loud. I’d rather try to decipher in my head who they are & what their hopes and dreams, fear and facts are, rather than eyeball my to-do list & take action on getting things done.

Not today. Not right now. 

They’ll never read this. Though I wish they would because I want the guy in the sepia toned color sweater to know that I am desperately in love with a sentence he just spit out, casually, as if it wasn’t something he’s spent long-hours, many months thinking about.

He casually just gave the guy in a dark purple tweed sweater a quick recap on his dating life and all of a sudden he said this:

Life isn’t like computers – you can’t configure people. You just have to take the whole thing the way it is.

I want him to know that it’s taken me many years, broken hearts, and miles of travel to learn that. I want him to know that I wish that wasn’t true. That I wish we could plug in a few codes and change a few things so that the people we love the most don’t become the people who make us drag our feet through life with punctured hearts.

I want him to know I’m not just listening. That I hear him. He’s hurting. He’s broken. He’ll never admit that. Just like I’ll never admit to him that he’s the main subject of this Monday’s newsletter.