Do What You Can

As I write this, I'm sitting on a train, about half-way through a two hour trip. The subway I had planned to take to get to this train had been unexpectedly shut down, so I decided to get off at the closest East Side station and walk the rest of the way to the West Side. I knew this would really be pushing it for time, but I just planned to do my best to catch my train.

Armed with a well-practiced New York speed-walk, and the muscle memory to fly through the touchscreen ticket purchase, I made it onto the train just in time. Finding a seat that was vacant and wasn't between a family of four or made impossible by someone that's morbidly obese took a few minutes but I finally found my own side of a four-seater, facing another guy about my age who sat in the seat diagonal from me.

As I sat down, I offered a little smirk and one of those casual "half-nods." A few beats later I heard a muffled "ugh.. seriously..?" Not knowing what he was referring to, I made eye-contact and simply responded "what..?" He stared at me for a good twenty seconds, wide-eyed, and then finally motioning to my ticket, saying "I'm stuck wit' yo' ass the whole ride man.." Caught a bit off-guard, I wasn't quite sure what to say. "Well, this train only goes half the way there, then there's a connecting train anyway. This train's really crowded too, we're both lucky to have this amount of room."

I honestly think he expected me to just shrug out of defeat or fear (or both) and get up without a word, but I didn't see him as a threat.. maybe just a misguided young guy with a relative lack of a vocal filter. He took what felt like three minutes to take in what I had just said, and then responded "Yeah man.. you know what? You're right. I've just had a really bad day. It's all good, I do have plenty of room. Sometimes I just question the universe and I wonder if there's any reason for days like that, you know?" Now this dialogue might sound too whimsical to be a true account, but I promise you, that really is what he said, and it happened only minutes ago so there's no necessity for artistic licensing.

I processed this unexpected reaction of his, and the best I could come up with was "It's alright, I understand where you're coming from. But if you understand that your day went the way it did for a reason, then you'll understand that maybe you needed those experiences. Sometimes something seems completely mundane but it happens for a very particular reason, in terms of your overall timeline."

I guess the biggest reason why I decided to post this for all of you was because it made me think about the whole "strangers on a train" phenomena (not so much in regards to the film, although the original black and white version is worth watching.) In a city of 8 million people, it only takes a one-time exchange with a complete stranger to alter your mindset. It'd be unrealistic for me to say that 100% of these interactions are beneficial, but having been on both sides of the spectrum, I strongly believe in the power and meaning of chance.

The experience that comes to mind right now was when I was in the hospital a few months back and this Emergency Room Nurse that wasn't even assigned to me just made eye-contact with me and decided to walk over to my bed. We ended up talking for about fifteen minutes and we talked about things that really stuck with me.. about life, love, friendship, family, and New York City. About 2-3 weeks ago, I passed her on the street and her eyes lit up with clouded but certain recognition. I gave her a nod and a smile and disappeared back into the crowd, but I'll never forget what she told me. That, my friends, is a story for another day.


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