Caring is enough

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by all of the sadness and suffering in this world? Have you ever felt like maybe you aren't doing enough to help? I feel that way all the time and I'm sure a lot of other people do too.

If I don't donate my paycheck to this charity, I must be selfish.
If I don't have anything to offer this homeless person on the street, I must be heartless.
If I don't know what to do or say for my crying friend, I must be a bad friend.

I'm sure we have all had similar thoughts to the ones above and it puts an unnecessary burden on our shoulders.

You are only one person. Just because you can't help everyone everywhere every second does not make you a bad person. 

By simply caring and being thoughtful, you are making a difference. I swear.

Once upon a time, I was a self-loathing loner. (I'm still kind of a loner, but not a self-loathing one) I completely did not like myself at all and I was so lonely. I never talked to anyone about how I was feeling. I would just plaster on a smile every morning and drag myself through the day, pretending everything was fine.

But I needed to get all of that yucky, messy hatred out of my system somehow and I did that by writing and....tweeting. With that said, I don't recommend venting on the internet. But I did and I will say that for the most part, I'm kind of glad that I did. Because there was this one friend that I had on Twitter who was there for me more than people I knew in real life. When I would tweet something depressing and follow it up with something along the lines of, "No one is going to read this because no one gives a crap," she was there to assure me that SHE did.

My tweets were a cry for help. I didn't tweet depressing, "life sucks" tweets for attention or because I wanted people to feel sorry for me. I just needed to get my thoughts out of my system and deep down, I really just needed someone to care about me. To be there for me.

So there she was. My Twitter friend whom I had never met. She stayed up late talking to me. She told me she cared. She once told me that I was my own worst enemy and that that was something I could overcome. And she was right. I eventually did overcome it.

This same girl once tweeted something along the lines of, "I never know what to say when one of my friends is upset. All I can do is be there and listen."

And that is enough. 


She didn't have to fly thousands of miles to my home and hold my hand while I cried.
She didn't have to invent a magical formula that makes people happy.
She didn't have to buy me a puppy or bake me a cake made out of rainbows and smiles. (Yes, I just quoted Mean Girls.)

She was just there. She may not have physically been there, but she was still there for me. She was my friend when I needed one and she talked me through too many messy days to count. I will never forget about that and I am so grateful for her.

Being there, caring, or simply letting someone know that you're thinking of them can move mountains.

That is also a good thing to remember this holiday season while you're running a hole in your wallet. You don't have to buy gifts for every person you spoke to or made eye contact with this year. The thought alone really does count.

<3 Madison