Not your rocks.
Rocks are funny things.
Some are tiny enough to put in your pocket and forget about.
Some take both hands.
Some are smooth. Some have sharp edges. Some are pretty enough that we bring them home from beaches and mountains and random places because apparently humans see a nice rock and think, yes, I should own this now.
Kids are especially good at this.
They'll hand you a rock like they've just discovered gold and now you're supposed to keep it forever.
And honestly, maybe we're all still doing that.
Just with different kinds of rocks.
Because we all have our own things to carry.
Our choices. Our responsibilities. Our mistakes. Our grief. Our healing. The things we need to make right. The life we're trying to build.
Our rocks.
Some of those things are heavy.
And that's okay.
They're ours.
But apparently having a backpack already full of our own stuff has never stopped us from picking up everybody else's.
Someone is angry with you.
Rock.
Someone doesn't like a decision you made.
Rock.
Someone made a decision of their own and now everything around them is a mess.
Somehow, rock.
Someone you love is hurting and there isn't a thing you can do to make it better.
That's a hard one.
Because when you really love somebody, sometimes you'd carry every rock they have if it meant they didn't have to.
So you pick one up.
Then another.
Until every once in a while somebody has to remind you—
Not your rocks.
Sometimes somebody hands you their rock and you take it without thinking.
Sometimes you see one sitting there and pick it up yourself because you think somebody has to.
And sometimes—
this is the really ridiculous one—
there isn't a rock at all.
Nobody said anything.
Nobody complained.
Nobody told you they were disappointed.
But don't worry.
Your brain has it covered.
It will happily imagine what they might think.
What they might say.
How they might interpret what you did.
And now you're carrying the weight of somebody else's opinion before they've even had it.
That's impressive, really.
We can manufacture our own rocks.
Sometimes somebody has to look at you and say,
You know you're making that up in your head, right?
Which is a really irritating thing to hear when you're currently having very real feelings about the thing you made up in your head.
Except...
sometimes they're right.
Nobody handed you that rock.
You made the thing yourself.
Maybe that's how the backpack gets so heavy.
Not because one enormous thing landed in it.
Just one rock.
Then another.
Someone's anger.
Someone's disappointment.
Someone's expectations.
Someone's pain.
Something somebody actually said.
Something somebody might say.
Something nobody has ever said but you've decided they probably think anyway.
Until you're exhausted and haven't stopped long enough to ask the most obvious question:
Whose rocks are these?
Because someone else's rock can be real.
Their anger can be real.
Their disappointment can be real.
Their hurt can be real.
You don't have to decide they're wrong before you're allowed to admit it isn't yours.
You don't have to make somebody the bad guy.
You don't have to stop loving them.
You don't have to stop caring.
You can care about somebody's rock without carrying it.
Maybe you sit beside them while they carry it.
Maybe you help for a little while.
Maybe you listen while they tell you how heavy it is.
But caring about the rock isn't the same thing as putting it in your own backpack.
And maybe some of the rocks we're carrying have been in there so long we don't even remember where they came from.
Maybe somebody handed one to us years ago.
Maybe we picked one up because we thought we were supposed to.
Maybe we made one ourselves.
Maybe we've carried it for so long that the weight started feeling normal.
I don't know.
But every once in a while, maybe it's worth dumping the backpack out and looking at what's actually in there.
Some of those rocks are ours.
Pick them back up.
They're part of the deal.
But some of them?
Maybe we can finally look at them and say—
Oh.
Not my rocks.
And leave the damn things there.
