A Memorable Journey

I saw you elbowing the door inwards, the way we learned during the pandemic.

I saw you with your hair caught in a neat bun, your translucent skin set off by your lavender suit. Your eyes looked so calm as you pushed the suitcase in front of you. Feeling suddenly frumpy, I finger-combed my curly hair and tied it into a ponytail, hoping it would behave this once.

I was taken aback as you prepared to take the aisle seat next to mine. I was under the impression that every other seat would be left empty, in accordance with the social distancing norm. Looking at the crowd in the compartment, I realized that it was almost like the pre-pandemic days except for the masks. I caught you glancing at me to gauge if I were ‘your kind of person.'

It might sound rude to people from a different culture, but here in our country, it is normal to judge people by giving them a once-over, even those who would like to pretend that they weren’t the noticing kind.

I have seen two strangers talking to each other while traveling on a train like long-lost friends, and I got the impression that you were that kind of person-easy to initiate conversation.

I wasn’t one of those kinds.

But then, by the time the train left the station, I found myself sharing with you stuff that I never thought I would with anyone. I tried to curb my tongue, but I was in the midst of verbal diarrhoea. You were quiet when I told you that I had spent the lockdown period all alone within the four walls of my tiny apartment as my children didn’t want me to make home with them. I told you how each day of the fourteen months was one long, lonely journey, and though I was comfortable financially thanks to my financial acumen. I went on about failing at building a good relationship with my own. I remember saying, “I don’t know where I went wrong in my mothering journey. I ended it with, “I am not as confident as you are,” quite forgetting I don’t know you at all!

You disembarked one station before mine. We never exchanged names, but I still have with me the piece of paper with Mitch Albom's quote:

It’s not just other people we need to forgive.
We also need to forgive ourselves.
For all the things we didn’t do.
All the things we should have done.

I don't recollect which shocked me more- your words or your tears as they flowed down your cheeks- when you said in response to my earlier observation of you, "You don’t know me sufficiently to judge me. You don’t know my world, but what I can tell you is we need to snatch pieces of life while living this life."

I stepped off the train, leaving my feelings of inadequacy and self-pity behind, and floated towards the exit as I experienced the magic of feeling unburdened, my hair all over the place after escaping the rubber band.

4 years, 8 months and 16 days on, the journey and words live on, though I try not to judge anyone any longer.