On a windy balmy afternoon, I am starting my story. This as I sat alone in an al fresco restaurant sipping coffee, people watching and contemplating my future after a failed relationship again, a career that seems going nowhere, friends that are always rushing to leave somewhere, the rising cost of living and my recent bout with a disease that left me half dead, half living.
It was one of those days when I wished I was sick so I'll have a few days down to not think of anything but sleep and medicine and getting well. I saw the cars passing by with their passengers and their blank faces, some so sure of where they are going, others unknown of where to go. I saw the slightly stooping but proud mother carrying a sleeping child wishing that her baby will have a future brighter than her. I saw the attache case man blindly going to the next meeting probably to seal another million dollar deal for his boss but at the expense of another quality time not spent with his family. I saw the young couple holding hands not knowing that their parents are waiting for them back home to tell them that they have to break it off or they'll have to send them packing to separate boarding schools. I looked at the woman who was oblivious of the honking cars and devoid of chaos who will probably going home to a house bursting with an uncanny silence so deafening she'll probably try to bury her face under her pillow again. I gazed lovingly and somewhat enviously at the happy family with their dog in tow going to the park for their weekend stroll only to find out when they go home that their place had been ransacked and robbed. These are the ironies of life that if you're too weak or too coward to face will leave you catatonic or worst, dead.
It was with these thoughts racing on my mind and occupying my time that I didn't notice the homeless woman until she nudged me from behind and asked me for something to eat. As I turned my gaze to this unwelcome intrusion, I dropped the mug I was holding and it fell to the ground shattering the silence of my thoughts and making people turn their heads in my solitary presence. It was an uncomfortable situation for someone who was looking for a little peace and stillness from her chaotic life and equally chaotic thinking. But on that day, in that instant, I just picked up a fragment that broke off from the mug and landed on my feet and laughed like a madwoman. When the urge is too strong and the emotion is too intense, nothing and no one can ever stop you from doing the things that will leave you looking like a fool. And in that moment, I didn't care at all.
The homeless woman almost was about to flee for fear of being admonished by the restaurant people for causing the crash and in part for causing my mind to escape me for a moment. In one quick reflex, I had my hand softly in the homeless woman's arm letting her know that it's ok. She must have seen the pleading in my eyes that she cautiously stayed and sat down.
"How are you?", a crazy question you might say, crazier if you ask it to a homeless person with nothing and no one except the clothes on her back. I felt like an idiot for a second but when you have almost lost your senses, nothing is surprising anymore. I asked it as if the answer will be the most important wisdom in the world that I'll ever get. This I asked as if the answer will be the cure-all to all of the planet's problems and to mine as well. The homeless woman nervously shifted position and with the insides of his sleeves, rubbed the eye crusts that hugged her sight. I must have cringed at the sight of her doing that, that's why she had to slightly bow to cover her undoing.
"I'm ok", she answered without pretensions and with a slight twitch in her mouth. "I know you're thinking that I'm just a homeless woman with nothing in material wealth, who rummages through other people's trash to survive, who begs for other people's food to live, who hovers in other people's happiness hoping that their happiness and fortunes will rub on me and make me luckier. But I'm ok." she started to relax.
"I get by not the way you get by... but I get by all the same. I breathe. I live. I see the world and the people in a fashion divested of all things limiting. I am not restrained by the company that pays or by the boyfriend who claimed loves me or the image the governs choices. I am not prevented by the friends who influence or the money that rules the world or the time that controls the work and lifestyle. Nothing is confining me. Nobody is holding me back except perhaps the occasional rains or when I'm too feeble to walk because I don't get to eat the nutritious foods you can only get with a hefty price nowadays. I know without the one I mentioned, people see you as unimportant, as someone not worthy of any time, as someone better left ignored in this lifetime. And yes that would have been my reaction a long time ago when I met me like this in the street on my way to the office.
I choked but she continued. This time with zeal and passion.
You see I have been a top executive before. I almost own the company I work for because as they say, I am a genius. I have put them on the world map, doubled their profits, streamlined their people, cut down their operating costs, re-engineered their credo to make it more human and just when I thought I almost have it all, I made a mistake, stumbled and fell flat faced on the ground. It began when I made an untimely judgment call to skew the market to another segment and let go of the existing ones. I have been so confident that the industry and the prevailing call of the times will change in favor of my decision but it did not. I was wrong and the consequences were disastrous. I have a 5-year relationship with a guy in the same industry and when a woman in tough times call for tough support, I never got one, mine went away and change to a sturdier gal who needed no support at all. My friends came rushing to me not to comfort but to say their goodbyes and the family that I was hoping to cling on has a problem of their own that telling them mine would only make it worse. So left with no one and nothing, I brokedown. A few helped along the way but my own will and determination made me recover and here I am now, dirty and with nothing and I have never felt ok.
I was stunned. No words form in my mouth. I may have been too jaded with the world that I forgot to really look at people, the realness in them. The sin of generalizing took hold of me; when people are dirty, they're rubbish, when people are poor, they're insignificant, when they don't have anything to offer you, they're not much use of your time. This time, I took a good look at the person in front of me. She is perhaps in her 60s. The sun has put a strain on her brown skin but you can still see that she has seen better days. The hair is a little unkempt tied in a bun with some flowing through her eyes. She has a small eyes and a gentle stare , the kind I only see on mothers, my mother. When she smiles, her small eyes disappears but her whole face comes alive. She speaks slowly slurring some of the words so I had to move a little closer to hear her. She's a proud woman despite being deprived of what I have right now... everything material but nothing spiritual.
I ordered a meal and sat back as I offered it to my new friend. This is starting to get to my skin. I have always been too focused with everything that my company needs, with everything to make me feel needed : planning, organizing, staffing, managing, controlling people, places, things. I only have 2-hour sleep, I'm always on the go, on the phone, in a meeting, in a working breakfast, lunch and dinner, I am always talking to people, running after clients, organizing events, attending a premiere, planning a new campaign, writing scripts, preparing presentations, until my mind started wandering to faraway lands, to calming breeze and soft winds, until it loiters and lingers a little longer to a safer place where no one can harm me and everything works according to my command. That's when I had my breakdown and I can no longer be tasked to manage even to do simple chores like locking the door and turning off the lights. That's when I realized that some people have limits, physically and mentally and that if you don't acknowledge that, you're either superman/woman or a ghost.
Come to think of it, this homeless woman and me are bounded together by a common thread, we're both obsessed with getting what we want in so little time, in pleasing everyone and always asking to be needed and not leaving anything for thyself. It's as if the praises will make us better persons, the deals will make us a cut above the rest, the work will make us invisible from the hurt and the pain and the sickness and from the consequences of time not spent with the people we love. They say that when we get older, relationships will be much more important than your work. It always does. But in our time while going up the corporate ladder, we both forgot that until we're too worn down and too damaged to change the course of our life. It has become both our weakness to focus on satisfying our ambitions only to find out in the end that it never stops. One can never be fully satisfied. It goes on and on and higher and higher. What we have right now, what we own, whatever position we have reached, it just gives you the reason to want more, have more and reach higher at the expense of all that's truly important.
My new friend has long been gone both from the restaurant and in my life. She has finished her meal and moved on to tread the path she has carefully chosen. It may not be everybody's choice or people may not find it the wisest decision but it was a path that she has certainly thrived . She is probably talking to another lost soul, touching another life, changing another perspective, and like me, giving options to be like her or to be like no one. The chances of us meeting again is nil compared to the opportunity that she has opened for me in a slightly different way. Picking up the pieces like picking the broken mug will never be easy. Starting over for a woman who has been diagnosed with a nomadic mind will always be difficult. Making a new life and forgetting the past will require the greatest effort and the longest healing time. But it can happen. Time has given me the advantage. Destiny has given me the chance to change my path or to see what led to what. And to let this chance pass would be to let life pass you by without lessons learned.
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