We don’t always get the full story. But we can still bear witness. We can still nod at the mystery of it all and say: I don’t know you, but I see that you're here. And that’s not nothing.

Sonder reminds me that the world isn’t built around me. That everyone is carrying their own epic—full of grief and joy and contradictions—and that, most of the time, I’ll only ever get the briefest glimpse. But what a thing to glimpse.

Knowing I’ll never fully know anyone is what makes it feel like such a gift when someone lets me in, even a little. When they tell me the thing they didn’t post about. When they trust me with the part that doesn’t make a good story. When they let me see the mess behind the metaphor.

Our Monday huddles only scratch the surface. We’re all little icebergs in business-casual sweaters, revealing the smallest tip of what’s really going on underneath.

Who are you when no one’s watching?

It was like someone handed me a flashlight and aimed it toward the edges of my vision, illuminating a world I’d always suspected was there. Suddenly, the woman walking briskly through the parking garage wasn’t just late, she was carrying something. The barista handing over my coffee wasn’t just tired, he was in the middle of something big, or hard,... See more

And somehow, that doesn’t make our connection less meaningful. It makes it more. Knowing I’ll never fully know anyone is what makes it feel like such a gift when someone lets me in, even a little. When they tell me the thing they didn’t post about. When they trust me with the part that doesn’t make a good story. When they let me see the mess behind... See more

And it’s not just strangers who get me like this. It’s my sister, too. We talk nearly every day, but sometimes I’ll catch myself realizing—truly realizing—that she has an entire interior world I’ll never fully enter. She has her own thoughts looping in the shower. Her own people who made her laugh that week. Her own worries she might not voice... See more