if this is how it stays, i don't want to.

One of few times my heart really aches is when I see elderly people carrying their own groceries from the store, onto public transit, back to their apartment/retirement building alone. I am thankful to know somewhere inside me is someone compassionate enough to feel and desire the dignity I barely salvage myself today. I struggle when I discover 'a lack of dignity' is often found amongst pity rather than an appreciation for natural aging, independence and wisdom. I may be a perpetual stigma taught only to see the negativity of what I do not personally embody. My sympathy stems further sometimes: I remember passing a woman in the afternoon with two of my closest friends. The sun was out, patios were open and the streets were noisy with laughter; real engagement of all those who passed by in conversing groups. She sat on a corner beyond the sidewalk near some bushes you could see through. I noticed as everyone made their way past where she and her plastic black garbage bag sat that no one else glanced in her direction. She did not avert her gaze from straight ahead despite the fact it did not seem like she was staring at anything in particular. Her hair was stringy, her skin was burned brown and her eyes remained as vacant as the target they fired towards. I proceeded and said nothing. How does someone any age, let alone the half way mark, find themselves so disconnected and different from the rest of the world if I may be so ignorant as to call it that? How can someone lose their home, personal hygiene, role and support system as to be left on a corner beyond the sidewalk near some bushes you could see but are not likely to look through? I do not believe it is a choice but I understand there are many people who will dispute this. The sun is out and I get sad that she might get sad over the beautiful weather which often puts pressure on one to be joyous, which makes those who are not, lonely enough to die. Maybe she is experiencing a reality of complete liberation but we must all, in some sense, long for relation above all else? Maybe she is experiencing such a magnitude of relation within herself. Maybe it happens to be more than enough, more than we ourselves will ever gain. But maybe instead, a fear of god and an infuriating sense of survival are the causes of voices in her head screaming, "why am I still here? Why have You not let me die? Why have You not killed me yet?"