Strangers Remembered

happy new year

In 2014, I was crying on a stoop the way only very young people cry after breakups. A man stopped and sat next to me and said, “I don’t know what’s happening but it’s going to be okay, the world isn’t that bad.” I nodded and he said, “God bless you.” stood and left. I have not forgotten that moment just as I haven’t forgotten the dozens of people who I barely or did not know, who owed me nothing, who saw that I needed a moment of humanity and provided it to me. There was a couple, when I was young and obviously lost, in an ill-advised relationship with their friend, who spoke to me as an equal and a welcome guest in their home. It was a time when most others reacted by shaming me, rather than the man who should have known better. Women in bathrooms when I was shaken or upset. Strangers who invited me to bonfires and barbeques when I was traveling full time. 

I have, since I first realized how those moments impacted me, aspired to be the stranger remembered. Not by creating artificial moments but by paying attention to the people around me and, when I can, providing moments of support. Of course, be kind is not new advice and maybe people will remember you for it is not an honorable motivation. My motivation is not to be remembered, it is try to help people in the way I have been helped.

if you’re wondering why there is often a strange selfie in these posts, it is because I was advised to share images every time.

This is my last essay of 2023 and I do not know where I will be a year from now. I felt the same when 2015 turned to 2016 and when 2021 turned to 2022. Here is what I would like to be: More of a writer and less of a content creator. Balanced in health and bodily aspects, laughing a lot, though of in high esteem by the people I care about and respect and largely unaware of how people I do not care about or respect feel about me.

Happy new year, babes! You’ve got this one.

Remembering you, always!

Hannah Stella

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