one, but not ever alone

Written for the USC Triathlon Newsletter 11-09-06:

There are those times in life when we seek the company of others. You know what I am talking about...those times in life when we find ourselves in moments of extreme uncertainty and danger, when our lives lie teetering on a metaphorical precipice, caught in times of change and environments of chaos, whipped by winds and blinded by the darkness, and with nothing more than the silence of a yawning abyss waiting to receive us in the raging of its storm.

It's times like these we wish for a voice to guide us through the void.

It's times like these that we find ourselves wishing--and often looking--for someone else to lead us from the edge. Or if nothing else, to proffer even sympathy and the assurance that we are not alone.

It's times like these that we realize the value of the others we have around us. Friends, families, acquaintances, colleagues, confidants. People we hold close and cherish in the innermost depths of our minds, recall with the truest murmurings of our hearts. Even if we don't admit to them. We love them still.

And it's in times like these we come to understand the meanings of kinship, loyalty, and faith. Because it's then we know the comfort that comes from given empathy, the warmth that arises from shared emotion, and the strength that appears from unconditional acknowledgement.

And it's then we know what it means to be but one among many, one gathered with a legion, one woven into a network of people stretching across place and time unto infinite, all together facing the abyss and confronting the void. One, but many, and not ever truly alone.