I saw him as I was walking out of the Union Square subway station. It was raining for the third day that week, and the only light coming from the row of store fronts across the street was blurred by the downpour. I was trekking across the square towards my dorm when a particular nasty gust of wind hits, knocking his black umbrella out of his hand. I watched as it flies across the deserted square, broken and bent. Even though my first reaction was to chase after it, the owner of the black umbrella walked away without even a mere glance.

I smiled about his apathetic attitude as I wondered about his day, wondered about what all the tiny little things that have slowly added up to this moment were. I wanted to know why having rain pelted against his soaked denims felt deserving. I smiled and wondered, because for that moment I was with him.

For the bad days:

Remember that pain isn’t always an all consuming creature. Viciously eating you whole just to spit you out barely alive. Often it wears masks of sadness, of disappointment, of frustration as it inches slowly towards you. And when it seems like nothing has happened, yet everything has gone wrong. It’s okay to not justify it. To just say that yes, it hurts. Yes, I feel the pain.

For the bad days:

Know that you’re okay. Not the type of okay you tell strangers on the street you are, when they stare concerned. Not the type of okay you tell your best friend you are, when you felt like you’ve called them one too many times. But deeply, and truly okay. Knowing that the next moment will come regardless of how insufferable this one feels.

For the bad days:

Trust me when I say that someone cares. If it not your roommate, who no longer flinches seeing you in pieces. If it not your friends, who can only handle their life right now. If it’s not your mother, if it’s not the person living down the hall from you, if it’s not the barista with your morning coffee, then I promise you it’s a stranger. It’s that person you glanced at on the subway, or the one you passed by on 3rd Ave. Someone who’s life intersected with yours so briefly, that you can’t imagine they saw you at all. But they did.

Just like how I saw the man with the black umbrella, or the guy sitting in his stalled car on Broadway, or the girl crying on the church steps. And while I knew nothing of their lives, or what it means to be them at this moment, I saw them. I saw them, and understood on the most basic level that yeah, it sucks a lot right now. Just like that, someone sees you.

For the bad days:

Silently root for someone else, for someone is silently rooting for you.