safe

Safety is only ever a feeling really, if we're being honest. I mean, I'm sure you might very well be perfectly safe for moments and hours and days at a time... but there's no way of knowing for sure. Which moments you were out of the way of any danger whatsoever and which, had they gone the slightest bit differently, could have cost you your life. Until they do.

Anything could happen, literally any thing, at any given moment. You could be alone in a padded room with the cleanest air and water and the healthiest food and the perfect amount of natural light and some freak of genetics could stop your heart or send a blood clot to your brain and you're done for. Or your cells could stop multiplying, for no particular reason, before you're even born. Or the earth could simply crack open one day and swallow you whole. Who knows.

When I was little, no one was looking out for me. The world was dangerous because not only did Bad Things happen but no one else cared when they did. So I learned that it was entirely up to me to watch out for myself. If I was tired, or scared, or distracted by any other thing, I wasn't going to do a very good job, but it was no one's concern but mine, and I might as well be resigned to the fact.

So personally, whenever another person shows any kind of interest in my well-being, no matter how briefly, it comes as a huge relief. Perhaps I can do this after all. With a little bit of help.

Perhaps, for now, I might be safe.