lucky

I walked down the subway steps at Marcy Avenue yesterday and caught the eye of a guy about my age. He was at the bottom clearly waiting for someone, something. He smiled - his whole body smiled. For a split second I thought that he was of course waiting for me but soon realized that I've never seen this person before. His girlfriend trotted down from the steps into his arms. The kissed in the way that seemed comfortable but also a bit passionate. I felt a bit embarrassed to witness their public display of affection. Maybe because I'm ultra sensitive to everything right now, especially people touching.

I thought it was so nice that he waited for her. A simple, small gesture. I know that I'm in this cycle of overanalyzing everything but I'm trying to just let thoughts come and go like my breath. Breathe in a bit of sadness because no one was waiting for me, breathe out acceptance of this time to build myself up a bit.

I got home and Jack followed me into my room. Jack is my roommates 85+ lb mastiff pitbull mix. He mostly represents a hippopotamus because he moves so slowly and stiffly. He looked at me and I told him we could hang out in the living room but not my room, I ran into the living room. Jack stiffly ran and half jumped onto the sofa and flipped himself into me and took half my arm into his mouth. He does this when he's so happy you are there that he wants to actually bite you but he's too gentle to actually cause harm. He made me feel a bit better. I went to yoga (yup, still at it daily) and settled into poses which were held for 5-8 minutes each. Something about bending over my knee made me cry. Tears trickled down my cheeks as my toes went numb and I breathed as deep as humanly possible. I kept coming back to the question of, "When will someone be waiting for me?"

My friends were waiting though after yoga. I collected them at a bar and we went to another to get burgers. We sat and talked about past jobs, current relationships and other people's love lives. It's hard to hear of unhappy relationships right now. I keep coming back to wondering if people know how lucky they are. I felt lucky every single day when I was in a relationship. It's easy to lose focus of that when you're arguing over who needs to take the trash out or if there are shoes on the floor that you tripped over or whatever else makes you annoyed with the other person.

The guy from the subway, he knew he was lucky and I think that's what pulled at my heart strings. Because no matter how lucky you are, sometimes things just don't work out. But the only thing you can do is go home, sit on the sofa with the dog, go to yoga, meet friends for burgers, go home and put yourself to bed. You need to keep going, but don't forget to remember how lucky you are. No matter what situation you find yourself in.