When We Were Worthy

by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become. —Carl Jung

In English class last week, the sub had gone off on a long tangent about the difference between empathy and sympathy. Sympathy, the woman explained, meant you knew exactly what the other person was feeling because you’d felt it before. “I always remember it like this,” the sub had said. “Sympathy means same. Now empathy, on the other hand, means you have never experienced it, but you can imagine how it would feel.” Leah guessed no one on that field had experienced the same thing she had earlier that night. So that meant that this show of support was empathy instead of sympathy.

Everything was something lovely once, something to behold. It was only after the world got to it that it became too worn to appreciate anymore.

She exhaled breath she did not realize she was holding

I haven’t heard this sentence in a while