A colleague told me today that her brother-in-law is doing some charity work for a nonprofit called Bring Change 2 Mind, which has the goal of raising awareness about mental illness among American males. She said that she’s noticed a few of my posts on mental illness and suicide and thought I’d be interested in learning about this non profit and the work her brother-in-law does.

It made me smile when she brought this up during conversation. It’s like an acknowledgment that yes, there are people I don’t really think pay attention who do notice things I post publicly, and they actually care that I care to a degree. She said she was interested in getting involved in a nonprofit that was specifically helping the mental health awareness issues because she has a family history of mental illness. I told her I did, too, and when our eyes met, it was pretty clear she knew what I was talking about.

I guess I can’t be that hard on the world. The world is hard on all of us, even those I don’t think have it hard at all. There’s only so much we know about those who surround us every day. It’s hard to know what you can reveal about yourself when, but it’s comforting when people do reveal parts of themselves that they don’t normally do because then they become more real and human to us.