Dear Stranger at the stoplight,

I know you're discouraged. I know you're on your way home and the music that usually makes you feel better will not work on this horrible day you've had. I know you're sick of the track we're on, the track we've been on since we were born, the track we all try to escape but can't.
I know you have your good days, I know you have your bad.
I know you have days when the rays of sun shining through the clouds are beautiful to you. I know you have days when every sound, every coffee machine, every ticking clock becomes music.
I know this morning you woke up with a thought in your head. What was it?

And You. I walk by you on this campus all the time. I have never once seen you without your headphones. Regina Spektor would say you're using them to drown out your mind but I think it's the opposite. What you really want to drown out is everyone else. Nothing against them. You're sure they're nice enough people. But they're irrelevant.
I know you don't want to be here. Permanently. Neither do I.
You have goals and aspirations and are here by default. This institution of education.
This place we find ourselves stuck in,
Until further notice.

And finally. You, I catch a glimpse of you sometimes in the mirror, in those odd kind of seconds where I'm not exactly sure of how much time has passed, and every minute may be a day or an hour or a year, I have no way of knowing.
I stop and look at you more closely, and think of all the things that have changed since the last time I've looked at you. I see you every day, but it's not that often that I really look at you. You've morphed in so many ways until you've become, in certain times, unrecognizable. People have tried to control your actions and you've given into them. Something has changed, though.
I'm proud of you.
I'm proud of the protective wall you've built around yourself, the fortress of metal and glass and glue.
I'm proud of the fight you have, the way you deal with the things you make yourself forget and the things that it would be too dangerous to forget.

I'm proud of all of you, in reality, because I understand now that you are doing the best that you can.