Even the homecoming queen cries

​I had coffee with a friend yesterday whose family is going through a challenging time. They've lost someone very close to them.

She told me her young daughter is having a hard time because she doesn't know how to talk to her classmates about it. My heart broke a bit. Because I got it.

In many ways, I still get it.

Later, I was driving and an older song came on the radio. I'd never heard it. Maybe I had heard it before and I didn't listen. I don't know. But I often get messages when I pay closer attention.

Even to a song.

In her song, Homecoming Queen, Kelsea Ballerini asks, "do people assume you're always alright?"

I'm sure she wrote the song because she knows the answer to that. They do. People do assume you are always alright.

They have to, because if they assume you're not alright they have to talk to you about you're not alright things. And there's nothing we are collectively more uncomfortable with than talking about not-alright things.

For a few generations now, we've been practicing sweeping hard things under the rug. Then we go about the world walking on those rugs pretending nothing is under them.

Or maybe we've done this so long now that we don't even have to pretend. Maybe we've actually come to believe there is actually nothing under our rugs.

I want to remind us - there is. There is stuff under the rug. And when someone walks on those rugs without wondering what's underneath, someone is always feeling crushed.

As if it's them beneath the rug.

When hard stuff doesn't get talked about, we often blame the person under the rug. They should have said something, we think. I want you to know they almost always have no idea what to say. Or how to say it.

Believe me, no one wants to come out from under that rug more than them. No one wants to quit pretending to be the homecoming queen more than them. But they are often far more worried about what you will think than how they will feel saying it.

I think we would do a lot of people in our lives a big favor if we'd just ask them, "what if I told you the world wouldn't end if you started showing what's under your skin?"

It would be a beautiful starting place.

Because I assure you, many people DO feel like the world would end if you knew who they really are.

Many have spent a lifetime convincing you they are a homecoming queen to hide the fact that they aren't. We'd set a lot of people free if we'd gently and compassionately let them know, I know you're not the homecoming queen.

And more importantly, I'd love to know who you really are.

Even if it means talking about the you're not alright stuff.

Even if it means we discover even the homecoming queen cries.