Wiser on the run

It was a sunny Seattle morning and my last one in Seattle. I am going to be in Beaverton for a while now (hopefully). 3 months at the headquarters and I will be back to my gloomy world.

While I was trying to figure out where to keep my carry-on luggage in the train I noticed her. She was pretty and old, her eyes spoke volumes about her suffering, her body language screamed fear, and her elegance stood out. I know I am no psychologist, but her body language was readable. She looked at me and said ‘Hi’ with a broad yet faded smile. We started talking.

We spoke at length about how we take decisions in life, our relationships (failed and current) and her marriage and mine. She lived the life I fantasized for a vacation and I lived hers. She was living in a shell, engulfed by her drunkard husband. And I always thought I was living in mine. She never had kids and asked me about mine. I said ‘sure’! Having kids is a ‘must-do’ for us anyway. I quickly calculated her age and mine and realized she was exactly my mother’s age!

I have been searching answers to my own questions lately. She answered mine. She asked me to wait. We take a lot of decisions to achieve some stability in life – emotional, physical, financial or mental. Parking decisions seems not to be an option in a lot of situations. But she asked me to wait. And I found that to be a better idea than jumping guns. I thought what if we all waited to take decisions?

What if I did not get married to a guy for my emotional security? What if I did not care about money and gave up the job I disliked? What if I waited on my relationship and not give up on it? What if I decided to live alone all my life and not care about what the world had to say about it?

Every word of hers made me wiser. Her voice deepened as she spoke. She regretted her decisions in life and so did I. Well, I have been regretting a few decisions already. I am sure all of us do. What is a life without regrets?

We reached our destination in no time. She was sad about the fact that she would go back to her fearful life in an hour. I was sad to have let her go back to her life. We hoped our paths crossed again. We decided we would see how life has changed between this train ride and the next.

How I wish I could keep her with me! Her kids would have been very lucky…