People are _____.

Maybe it's the way I've been conditioned or maybe it's my innate female characteristic, but there's something about a person being in pain that moves me. I've always been hypersensitive to others and intuitive to ones condition, and I really go out of my way to make sure that the ones I love are okay. I firmly believe that you should treat others the way you want to be treated, and sometimes I feel like I put more into friendships than what I get out.

Maybe it's that when I was younger I wish someone would just pick up the phone and call on my family to see if we were okay. If Mom was okay. If Dad was okay. If I was okay. When my parents would argue I would run into my Dad's arms because I knew we were safe there. His hands were preoccupied and he could do no harm with them.

Maybe it's because one day when I was riding the bus home from school, I was feeling sad and lonely. I put my head against the window and looked out to a man holding his son. He whispered something into his son's ear and his son looked up at me. And he waved. And I was so overwhelmed with emotion and the capability of people (children!) to move others with simple gestures.

Maybe it's because my whole life I've felt misunderstood. God forbid I show my high school friends who I truly was and God forbid my mother understand the writings on my wall. I have an immense amount of understanding for people and their conditions. Their experiences fascinate me, encourage me to question my own actions, and promote me to love unconditionally. Call me a humanist (or an optimist), but people only know what they've been taught. If we keep this in mind when dealing with others, we are able to raise our level of understanding for each other.