“That’s rough,” Jean said. And for the first time, he said it without trying to fix it. Without offering solutions, or sympathy he didn’t feel, or a pat on the back. He just sat there, letting the man’s grief be a thing that existed, like the cloud above them or the crack in the sidewalk.
That afternoon, he saw a child drop an ice cream cone. The child wailed. The mother scrambled. Jean watched, and for a split second, he felt the old tug— Oh no, poor thing, what if that were me? —then he let it go. He kept walking. je m en fous
Jean had spent forty-seven years trying to care. He cared about deadlines, about his mother’s opinion, about the chipped paint on his front door. He cared so much that his shoulders were permanently curved inward, as if bracing for a falling sky. “That’s rough,” Jean said
“Lost everything,” the man added, unprompted. “Wife, house, dog. Not in that order.” He just sat there, letting the man’s grief
He never became a monk or a philanthropist. He never had a grand epiphany. But when he went home that night, he didn’t turn on the TV. He opened the window. He heard the neighbor’s baby crying, the distant train, Bébert purring from the armchair.
Je m’en fous —not as a wall, but as a door.
And for the first time in years, he didn’t try to name the feeling. He just let it be.