Same same, but different

I've spent a lot of time these past months returning to this blank page before me. Starting sentences, erasing thoughts, trying to force myself to come up with something worth sharing with you. I'm not sure if this is it, but I suppose it's time to try. 

When I was in Myanmar I learned a phrase, "Same same, but different." The idea being we're all deeply similar, we just live, look, and think a bit differently.

"Mama Catty" taught me this saying.

I'm no expert, but I have witnessed a lot of the "different," and felt even more of the "same same."
This phrase sums up all of my travels without employing nearly as many words as I always seem to need.

The hosts, greeting us with unprecedented generosity and kindness. 

Same same heart for the world. 

Different challenges and barriers.

The students at the college we taught community health lessons. 

Same same goal of learning to implement change around them. 

Different resources. 

The villagers approaching our clinic naming their chronic back, shoulder, and knee pain. 

Same same aches and ailments. 

Different weights we carry. 

I came home ruminating on this simple string of words- same same, but different.

The homeless man who called the ambulance because he was cold. 

Same same needs. 

Different circumstances. 

The woman advocating for a perfect stranger crying in the waiting area. 

Same same protective instincts. 

Different point of view. 

The parents weeping over their son's body, asking why we couldn't save him. 

Same same attempts to grip on to life. 

Different sense of loss. 

Every place I go, same same, but different. We're all human at the core, we have fears, anxieties, hopes, and pursuits. We want the ideal picture, and none of us have it. We all face the pitfalls and 50 foot walls looming over our attempts to live well; then, our victories and successes only steer us toward new road blocks to overcome.

I've looked in to the pupils of a perfect stranger, searching for the comfort of same same, only to be met with hate in their difference. It's tempting to stop looking.
When you lose your willingness to search deeply for the connection we all possess you lose more than the person you've snubbed. You risk believing most people are nothing but different. What a tragedy, to overlook the strangers who appear unlike us, and instead meet us with familiarity. To miss those soul connections is a loss of great significance. A loss only the darkest avenues of our heart will miss when they are not alighted by new and beautiful points of view.

If you looked in to my soul you'd find a mess of insecurities, hidden beneath convictions and confident words. You'd see the dance of joy and sadness, one sometimes more extravagant than the other, intermittently taking the stage. You'd see our great differences, and how they've grown from the place where we are all the same. I owe much of my soul's growth to those who did and still take the time to look. I learned to love strangers, acquaintances, friends, and family for those differences and to celebrate when we recognize the same same.

In all the lands I've seen there reside humans full of awkward, confounding, hilarious, and beautiful differences. In each destination the same same shone through, igniting the secret pathways of my heart and leaving me to explore what differentiates my soul and connects me to others'.