Gratitude.

                      

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.

Failing, MTA and a dagger tattoo.

Do you ever have one of those days where you tragically fail at all things human and eventually give up and resort to taking photos of other people doing the things you failed at whilst eating handfuls of candy?

No?

Only me?

I'm bad at things, and surprisingly very frightened of ladders.

I learned this today as I stood shaking on the top step, and had sudden flashbacks of my brother falling off an old, rusty, yellow ladder as a kid. It didn't even happen to me but there is something about a chubby ginger falling from great heights (or like the roof of a one story house but I like the drama) that really resinates with you.

Another thing happened today, I met the next love of my life...or I guess re-met?

A couple of times a week, I take the same 5'clock M train home and every single time, I get on at the same exact spot, into the same exact car and ride it to the same exact stop (obviously, because that is where I live?) Sometimes I notice a familiar face of fellow riders who are also creatures of habit and give them the customary wave (in my head....New Yorkers are dicks.) but one particular rider always catches my eye. A tall, lanky guy (I have a type, it happens)with a smattering of tattoos (all traditional style), some lame hipster glasses that I'm really curious if they house a prescription (if they don't I'm immediately turned off....I swear I'm stuck on a constant pendulum of lust or hatred) and always some combination of denim and plaid. I always see him book in hand, note his cuteness and go about scrolling through my phone.

Today though was different, my phone was dead.

When my phone is dead, I like to play a game I call, how long can I stare at this person before they curse me out? I do this purely because I like to study people. I think I was supposed to be an artist, if it wasn't for my lack of art skills of course.My first target was a cute dad type sitting across from me: Swamp green pants, James Potter glasses, an expensive (I'm guessing, what do I know?) watch and a pen and paper in hand scribbling away like a mad man. He looked like a Geoff (G spelling, never a Jeff) and my guess is that he was a professor of sorts, I could have that completely wrong but he had that vibe about him. Every now and then he would look away from his paper in thought, I liked him because in that brief moment his eyes were like windows and it was as if you could physically see his brain whizzing away behind it. Two stops later, he scurried off the train. He was most definitely a scurrier.

Enter love of my life.

I chose him next because I had seen him many times before. In all honestly, I was drawn in by his tattoos, really well done and for some reason I wanted to know all about them, what they meant, if they had any meaning at all. I also liked that he was reading so intently. As the train threw him about his eyes never left the page, I couldn't tell what he was reading and it really bothered me. He was a book curler and he had words in the margins, when I saw that I was sold.

That's when I noticed he was staring back at me, slight smirk that only got smirkier as he saw that I had noticed him staring at me, staring at him,

I had spent so long trying to figure out what the book was I completely forgot about the social awkwardness that comes from staring at people you don't know. Damn it!

I quickly looked away but my peripherals told me he didn't. He instead uncurled his beaten up book and placed it in his backpack, headphones went in and he looked back smirking even more.

I'm sure you could guess what came next....

Of course he *came over, asked for my number and we all lived happily ever after....in love....with cute little tattoo'd babies.

Just kidding, I got off at the next stop. How anticlimactic. He did give me the customary head nod on my way out so I mean, that's love right?

Until next time dagger tat.

Also, I really need to know if your glasses are prescription....it's make or break. If it's simply a uniform, I'm going to cancel the church. Timing is of the essence.

The 5th of July.

This morning I was on the train at obscenely early o'clock dreaming of my bed, the fireworks still ringing in my ears, completely lost in my own world. It was the morning after the 4th of July, so the train was pretty deserted except for the odd walk of shamer, hangover waiting to happen or homeless person, so I wasn't really paying any attention to anybody.

After about five minutes I noticed the man across from me glaring in my direction. He seemed drunk and fell somewhere between scruffy and homeless, but one thing was certain, his social queues were definitely a little rusty because he didn't even flinch when he saw me notice him staring. His social ineptness became even more apparent when after a few minutes of hard staring he moved on to the quietly stroking himself in his baggy sweatpants phase. Great.

I was only three stops away from my destination and the train wasn't empty enough for me to be scared,   so I uncomfortably turned up my music and began scrolling aimlessly through the pictures on my phone.

A few minutes later I received a light tap on my shoulder,

"Hey..." A disheveled looking business man with an almost comical untied tie and scruffy hair,

"I would move to another car if I were you..." He smiled.

Now, my heart knows he was trying to look out for me in a valiant effort to shelter me from Wank Master 5000. But his words really pissed me off.

Instead of asking this man to stop, he asked me to leave.

Now I'm not saying it was his duty to stand up for me, nor was I expecting it. Heck, this is New York, if a person collapses inches away from a large crowd, nobody bats an eyelid (except for myself and one other gentleman....but that's a whole other story, which you can find on my other website www.newyorkershavenosouls.com).

I wish he hadn't said a word. For the moment he opened his mouth, he unwittingly approved this mans actions and condemned my own.

Somehow it was my fault for being there, provoking this man in some way, and not his fault for being a complete failure of a human being.

I was in the wrong place, as if I had walked into his bedroom and he had every right to be rubbing away.

Instead of telling rapists not to rape, we tell victims to not get raped.

I'm over it.

The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam...

New York in theory is ginormous. Millions of people milling around, never reconnecting, it seems daunting, lonely. But I've found this to not be the case...

I can't seem to go a day without seeing someone I know, or someone I think I know, or a friend of a friend, or that dude I once made out with in the back of Lolita and vaguely recognize. I swear it's the smallest, big city in the world.

Although sometimes, that isn't always a bad thing.

A few weeks ago, there I was casually smushed against the door of the train as it repeatedly jolted against my skull (aka a typical morning), Completely content in my mind. Suddenly I felt a tug on my headphones at the hand of a waspy suit and removed a bud in an act of over-exaggerated annoyance.

"Pardon?"

"What are you listening to?" Confusion. Did this asshole really make me unmangle myself from my stoically perfect don't-fucking-touch-me pose for this? Realization. Oh my god are my headphones not plugged in all the way? Am I that asshole spewing my own music all over the general public! Embarrassment. Am I listening to Disney songs again?

Yes, Yes I was. 

"Uhm...Sleeping Beauty...Once Upon a Dream." 

An Awkward silence (well as silent as the 6 train can possible be) settled over us and after a good ten seconds he smirked,

"That's awesome." Then he left the train.

Cock blocked by Disney. 

Now I didn't plan on seeing this man again so I quickly pushed him out of my mind in a flurry of 456 new MTA riders smashing me further into the door. 

This morning though, he appeared, settling down next to me and tugging on my headphones.

"Another bright dress, another Disney song?" I glanced down, Kanye West. 

"Yep!" 

"Here..." He pushed his phone into my hand with the name Subway Princess all ready for me to tap in my number...

"Smooth."

Within a few minutes he was off bounding up the stairs, and I was back in my mind shuffling shit around.

For now I was a princess, well in this complete strangers phone at least!