It could be the tiniest thing that sets a thought rolling down the hills of my mind. Just now I chose a vertical pages document and as I pressed it, I immediately wished I chose the landscape. I then closed the empty vertical one and went back to choose the other.

I was then going to talk about how different perspectives are good sometimes. I was going to connect that vertical versus landscape pages document to the choices we have every day and the tiny little changes of life that come with those tiny little choices. For example, I wouldn’t have written these first six sentences had I not changed the document shape.

I might’ve sat down and started writing about the barking dog intertwined with the ocean waves crashing against the rocks I am sitting on right now. I might have began describing the pounding of the runners feet I heard when he passed me on my way to these rocks. How he reminded me of someone.

But the person he reminded me of runs better than this guy. This guy looked like he had just stubbed his toe and was taking his anger out on the inanimate object- as though it purposefully meant for him to run into it. The person he reminded me of runs like he is at peace. As if he has never stubbed a toe and if he does, he apologizes to the table.

Things have began to get a little blurry. Not so much that I bump into tables, but enough for me to realize I’ve been squinting more recently. Every time I squint, I am reminded of the effort I am putting into seeing whatever it is I am squinting at.

It’s rarely a person because I find myself entirely content with someone across the world, rarely a dog as they get real close real quick, it’s rarely a street post because I’ve been in this town long enough now to know what it says without squinting.

I usually find myself squinting at sunrises and sunsets. I squint at the ocean, and at the trees, and try to sharpen the outline of the leaves. I squint at boats balancing on the horizon and planes dangling in gravity above me. I squint at the bubbling holes of sand and wait longer than I should in hopes a little friend crawls out. I squint at most things blue and green, pink, orange, and yellow. Some parts of the rainbow take more of a squint than others.

I am watching two swimmers play tug of war with the current. They swam as far to the shore as they could and then stood up to walk the remaining twenty five yards. When I swim, I rarely find myself squinting. I rarely find myself even registering what it is I am seeing at all. Usually it is just 1-2-3-breathe-1-2-3-breathe.

A couple of months ago, it clicked in my head as to why swimming has always been therapeutic for me. It’s the breathing. For those thirty minutes that I am swimming, there are either no thoughts rolling down my mind or just one on repeat. Either way, I usually finish the swim having untangled that thought and or ready for a new one.

I wonder what those two swimmers thought about. I wonder if they are in love. Are they sad? Are they happy? Are they untangling a question or swimming with none at all? Sonder; the act of realizing that everyone you pass has their own little world within their mind. Their own feelings, their own loves and losses, their own lives.

How crazy it is to think about how we cannot fully ever know someone. That we can learn all of the things that we think make them them and theres still more. What keeps them up at night? What motivates them to wake up? What is the dream that ties it all together? What annoys them, and how do they respond to that annoyance? Do they pick up trash on the road as they pass it? Are animals drawn to them? Do they love their mother?

All of these things give us a glimpse into the person that they are, but still only adds onto the vision we already have of them. We create a little character for them in our minds and as we learn more and more about these people, we add that information onto the character we’ve created. If they do something we don’t like, we alter the character slightly. When they do something or say something we do like, that character changes once again.

That I know of, a mind reading device has not yet been invented and so it is impossible to know what is rolling down the hills of someone else’s mind. They can try to describe it to us. They can tell us as much or as little about their internal roller coaster as they want- still it falls through the sifter of our own experiences and attaches itself (how we see fit) onto their character.

Your mother- how well do you really know her? I would say I know mine extremely well, but I still I have no idea the thoughts that consume her mind when she swims, no idea what she finds worth squinting for. I don’t know the dreams she has when she sleeps, nor the feelings she feels when she sonders. And it is impossible for me to know, because I am not her.

It makes life quite lonely. But somehow, at the same time, it’s what brings people together. That feeling of being understood. This person versus the rest “know us better.” When people walk in two’s, when groups sit down at a restaurant, when one person say “I do” to another. We choose our people in life and we choose them for how they make us feel. And usually it’s how well they make us feel understood.

When you don’t have to explain yourself because they just get it. It is impossible for us to know if they really “get it” exactly how we want them to, but how well they make us feel like they do- this is how we choose our people.

Sometimes you’re sitting across from someone and thinking how they just don’t get it. You could use different adjectives to describe it, you could translate it in another language, you could turn to someone else and hope they convey it differently. Somehow you are still left feeling like they didn’t get it.

Then there’s some times that you aren’t sitting next to someone, but rather you’re across the world from them. They are so so far away, another time zone entirely. They sleep when you wake up and you wake up when they sleep. You don’t speak the same mother tongue, and you’re limited to explaining yourself in the ability you have in their language. You are opposite genders, from different countries with different morals, cultures, laws, and childhoods. You couldn’t be more different if you tried, and yet they get it.

You might not need to squint when you’re with them because there is now another set of eyes describing it to you, and you get it. You still bump your toes on tables sometimes, you’re human, but you don’t run like you’re angry. Being with them feels like 1-2-3-breathe.