Sometimes I fall into my own head, it's a scary place to be.
It's filled with a lot of questions.
Is it wrong to feel lousy about your inability to help another in the right way? Is it selfish to take another's genuine struggles and make it about yourself?
Today a lady came to me with pleading eyes,
I need a job.
She blinked at me, as I waited for her to elaborate. She didn't have a resume, or experience or anything actually, apart from the story of what she once had, memories of a past life in Bangladesh, a dizzyingly long list of dead relatives and desperation.
Just moments before she appeared, I had been chatting with a 19 year old novice to the world, enthusiastic about her potential. A fresh faced college girl, she was what I needed, I could help her. Yet, this older lady with a broken accent and a disconnect for the position I was trying to fill, nothing.
One needed the job to help support her social life, the other her life. period.
What do you say?
Sorry mam, I know you are far more qualified in every aspect of being a human, you are probably smarter, kinder and possess more life experience than I ever will, yet, I have a steady paycheck,stability and the power to make or break or break your day. I'm just a kid, yet here we are.
It made me feel really crappy....
But did I have any right?
I wasn't upset that this lady had hardships, I was upset because I couldn't help, I made her terrible situation about me.
I thought about her all day, and then as I commuted home another encounter invaded my mind with even more thoughts.
It was a million degrees on that platform, I was hungry and pissed and getting increasing frustrated by a constant tapping. As I looked around ready to glare angrily at the tapper, I was met with the image of a blind man and his stick hitting against pillars and concrete. My first thought was fear; seeing this man so close to the train tracks and so surrounded by jerks who aren't afraid of a little bump and grind scared me, yet he didn't seem to have a care in the world so I turned back to the cellphone nestled in my hands,
Is there anything scarier than watching a blind man walk down a subway platform? I tapped out before adding a scared cat emoji and hitting send.
The answer is yes, I'm sure actually being that blind man is far worse.
Everybody has struggles....some are minor, some are monsters....
My struggles are nothing.
My struggles are mice....
less than mice....
Mealworms.
I need to remember that more often.
