Sonder

[stgulik]

I fell off the commuter train this morning. I can't confide this to anyone but you people.

Like, I grabbed the sidebar when I went to climb the steps, but I had something else in my hand so I only grabbed with a couple of fingers. And they slid right off the bar. And then I was falling backwards, thinking, hey I can regain my footing well before gravity overtakes me completely.

My feet flirted with the concrete but wouldn't commit to a relationship. So I continued down until I landed on my back.

I'm all right. I'm barely even sore! But I was hugely embarrassed. The train rolled away and I took my sorry ass to a bench and hung out there until the next one arrived. A homeless guy sat down next to me and expressed sympathy while I sniffled a little. He was wearing a sleeping bag. We talked for fifteen minutes.

I'll just leave this here.

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Comments

[stgulik.livejournal.com]

More a bruised ego than anything! I got over it pretty quickly, I promise. I liked the homeless guy; he told me all about his drug addictions. It was the weirdest confession I ever received. Thanks for all these squishes, Nag!