Sometimes, a good cry is exactly what the body needs. When I was told I had an unexpected $1,120 expense to pay, I wasn’t emotionally prepared to welcome it. The news struck a lingering fear of material insecurity, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a long time. Standing there in the store, I started to cry. I felt hands on my back, heard soft apologies, and gentle reassurances: “Don’t cry.”
Crying felt calming. The salty water rolling down my skin subsiding the heat accumulating on my cheeks. It allowed my body to process a stress that had quietly settled within me, waiting for this moment to surface. This wasn’t about an expense. It was confronting a deeper fear. A past hypothetical narrative of my youth resurfaced, one where I found myself homeless, sleeping on the street, shivering, watching feet pass me by. A fear of being seen as an outcast rather than a piece of the collective whole. As trivial as this iPad expense may seem, it was tangled in the roots of that old insecurity.
This cry became an opening, an invitation to welcome uncertainty. A reminder that no matter the situation, the world moves in equilibrium.
Fear of the unknown is simply a challenge to peace, but the world always offers guidance as what we think to be limitless is still limited. This moment was telling me to refocus on what truly matters; Belief in times of fear. A reminder that material things will never bring true love, but are rather tools that help us share it.
I went to sleep last night accepting the cost of these repairs, understanding that this tablet is not about being an object. It is a tool that helps us create digital designs and art collaborations expressions that spread love.