One of my favorite words in the dictionary.
It is the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing you on the street, has a life as complex, real and full as one's own.
For me personally, I often get caught up in being the main character in my life, as everyone should, and sometimes find myself forgetting that everyone around me is also navigating and living their own individual lives.
When you remove yourself, and begin to think about everyone living their lives just as you are, making mistakes, falling in love, getting a job promotion. You get the point. It is a pretty eye opening phenomenon.
There was a video that I stumbled across on TikTok a few years ago that had such a profound impact on me that I still think of it from time to time. Because I can’t find it to show you, I will have to do my best to describe it.
It was a mash up of random clips of the parents of the creator. The clips weren’t anything special, just the two of them going about their day, cooking dinner, taking the dog on a walk, your typical daily routine. However, the caption said, “Remember, it’s their first time living too.”
I hate to admit this, but this was one of the first times where I consciously thought to myself, this is my parents first time living life as well. It took me days to recover from the relayed message and to this day, I still get emotional just thinking about it.
Growing up I expected my parents to have it all together all of the time. To have it figured out and write their words into stone because they were my parents.
Anything less just wouldn’t make sense.
The older I get the more I have learned to give them grace and understand that they are living and navigating life for the first time, just like I am.
Selfishly, I would get frustrated with my mom on vacation when we were pausing to take yet another picture of a flowering bush or the resort landscape. Little did I know she was filling up her own memory and experience with the things that she enjoyed and brought her joy.
Because newsflash, this isn’t my world, and everyone around me isn’t just living in it.
For as long as I can remember, I have had a lot of big emotions.
Not always the good ones, but for today’s purpose, we will just talk about those.
Seeing strangers complete the New York Marathon would bring me to tears, literally.
To be a stranger, looking in on their situation, I couldn’t help but to feel overcome with emotions for someone I have never met.
That is where sonder comes in.
Similarly, when I was in Maine visiting Acadia National Park, there was a group of young women seeming to be on some sort of trip together. While I was on the shore, admiring the ocean and cliffside, I couldn’t help but to watch them link hands and run into the ocean even though it was a chilly 40 degree day. They laughed and jumped in the waves.
Once again I was moved to tears.
Now, at this point, if you are thinking that I am a little off of my rocker, I promise that I am not.
What I am trying to describe to you is experiencing sonder.
Seeing these women without a care in the world, sharing a moment that I can only imagine they might have waited a lifetime to experience, was really something to witness.
Traveling has allowed me to share these experiences with the people I care about most.
Sure a lot of the things that I do when my visitors come into town I do because it is something I would enjoy. Now, I also get just as much satisfaction in watching my friends and family experience a piece of my lifestyle.
Sonder appeared navigating through the salt marshes of Coastal Carolina with my friend, Samantha as she got to watch dolphins for one of the first times in their natural habitat.
Sonder was the feeling that I felt when my friend Kaitlyn spread the ashes of her late father over Estes Park, a place that meant so much to her and her family.
Sonder was seeing my friend Rachael and her boyfriend, now fiancé, dance and sing under the stars at some dive bar on a side street in Savannah.
For as big as life can feel sometimes, if we slow down, and really pay attention to small moments, I think you can only then begin having a greater appreciation for life itself.
Because in my experience, some of life’s greatest moments are found in the quiet, less obvious moments.
If you actually take the time to look, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by just how much good and love is all around.
What an honor it is to live such a life and share in the opportunity of experiencing something as impactful as sonder.
I challenge you to slow down this next week and really pay attention to the people around you because once you start, you too will be able to find joy in others experiencing life for the first time too.