Some mornings you just know that it’s going to be a weird day.
For example, last week, Carly and I witnessed not only a teenager literally climbing the wall to get to the train (when the stairs were right there, dude) but also a man shoplift a Starbucks cackling wildly while a cop chased him into the street. That was a weird day. Weird vibes at work, complicated cases, someone laying on the bell in the elevator for two minutes straight. It was just weird.
Today was one of those weird days.
For starters, the bus was late. The bus is late often. If we take the same bus, we typically have the same bus driver. He’s a really sweet guy. Honestly. But he really enjoys talking to people, which can sometimes drag out the time it takes for the bus to arrive, and he’s almost always late. But today it was absurd. Five minutes is okay. Ten minutes? My legs are tired.
While waiting for the bus another one of our roommates arrived, and when you see your roommates after you said goodbye to the entire house fifteen minutes ago, that’s just weird. It’s like when you say bye to someone and then end up walking the same way. (Which I actually did this weekend, now that I’m thinking about it, and it was awful.) So she rode the bus with us for a bit, and then got off the bus and walked the same direction the bus was going, so we saw her for another like, five minutes. Just walking along as we drove. (Again, awkward.)
Finally we made it to the train station though and Carly needed to reload her Clipper card (again) (she does this a lot) (run out of card money) (she only reloads it like ten dollars) (which is like a day of travel) so I waited for her through the gate.
So the way our station works is that there are two levels. There’s the upper level, where you enter the station. Then there’s a middle level, which I didn’t realize existed until today, and then there’s a lower level. The lower level takes trains to San Francisco. The middle level is like, the returning train and heads east. I never realized this was how it worked. I swear to God. I’ve been trying to figure out for WEEKS how I only had to go up one small flight of stairs when I came home from work instead of the mountain of stairs I have to go down to get to work.
Anyway, as we were taking the long stretch down to the bottom level to catch the train, we passed the middle platform that had a blinking sign that said SFO AIRPORT / SAN FRANCISCO. Carly and I sprinted down the rest of the stairs and then found an escalator that went up and wound up all the way on the top floor again, and then we scrambled to find the middle platform because, like, seriously, I just never realized it existed.
There was even a big sign that said “ALL SAN FRANCISCO BOUND TRAINS BOARD LOWER LEVEL” and yet, the sign was blinking with a SF train, so like. Whatever. I literally felt like I was in an alternate universe. It was bizarre.
There were delays on the train too, so Late Bus + Late Train = Jenn Gets To Work Fifteen Minutes Late. Which was fine.
(We later found out that there were weird train things going on because the police needed to get a dog off of the tracks?! Okay. The dog was fine. They took him to a shelter. He didn’t have tags. I want to adopt him.)
Moving along, I just kind of leaned into the morning. I had a client that took up most of the morning, but while we were meeting everyone’s phone went off.
“It’s an Amber Alert,” my client said. I pulled out my phone. It was not an Amber Alert.
Emergency Alert
High temps expected Check on neighbors Drink water Cooling and heat safety info at sfdph.org
High temps expected Check on neighbors Drink water Cooling and heat safety info at sfdph.org
...Okay.
There was a birthday celebration at lunch time that me and my co-worker walked in late on (not realizing it had started) and caught the very tail end of the birthday song by walking into a room where everyone was facing the door? That was weird. I also had apple pie, which is weird. Pies are weird. Why did I take a piece of that.
Remembering that Carly needed to reload her Clipper card, I remembered I needed to reload mine as well.
LITERALLY TEN MINUTES AFTER I DEPOSITED MONEY ONTO MY CARD, I get a phone call from HR at work saying that they’re going to load my card for me, which is great! Only I have to deregister my card from my name so the can load it themselves from their account. The only problem is that I can’t deregister my card with a pending transaction. But also, did I need to load my card? If work? Was going to load it? For me? Moments later?
And now, we’ve reached the end of the day, where I got on the elevator with a client who was still in the lobby.
This man insisted that I had spoken with him before (which maybe I had! I see a lot of people so I’m not entirely sure) and was very apologetic that he had not been back. He was now working with the legal department, so clearly our rental assistance side of the office hadn’t been able to help, and he was upset. Not at my work, though, at his life.
This man, whose name I wasn’t even sure of, showed me an email that a partner of his had sent to him. He got quickly emotional about how he didn’t know where he stood with this person and how he just wanted direct communication from them. I’d read the email wrong and kept referring to the partner as a she and he eventually stopped me and said, “I have to live my truth, it’s actually a he.”
Standing literally one step outside of my building, I apologized for my own assumptions. This man started talking about how he’s bisexual, how he’s trying to find himself, how all he wants is this other man to just talk to him. I stood there for at least ten minutes listening to him talk, nodding my head, saying I can’t make these decisions for you, you need to reach out on your own.
He walked with me down the sidewalk toward the train and I very easily could’ve put my headphones in and tuned him out, or apologized and hurried away. Briefly, I thought about taking a longer route to get to the train so I could just leave. But like--fuck.
Sometimes people just need to be listened to.
I only got the guy’s first name, and it wasn’t until the end when we parted way, and I mean--whatever. Maybe the guy was crazy. Maybe he’s got some mental stuff going on. Maybe life hasn’t been the kindest to him. Whatever. He was kind and he was sad and it didn’t matter that my work day was over, he needed to be listened to.
I feel like people these days, including myself, are really bad at just fucking listening to people. We have short attention spans and we couldn’t care less about the problems of others and it’s easy enough to nod and act like you’re listening when you’re not. But the world is in shambles. The news is exhausting and there are so many people suffering from disasters and from policy and from hatred and from fear and all I could do today, was take one of those people who was hurting, and make it just a little easier.
At the beginning of the conversation, he was nearly in tears. By the end he was smiling. And it wasn’t because I’d given him some great advice or told him that everything was going to work out or sparked some flame of hope within him. I literally. Just. Listened.
I’m home now and I’m still thinking about that man, hoping (dare I say praying?) that he has the strength to reach out to his partner, hoping that things work out for him, hoping that things actually are okay. And while I might never know where he ends up or how things change (or don’t change) for him, I gave him what I could in that moment.
So listen to your local rambling man in a cowboy hat who is also wearing a pair of jeans with an insane amount of zippers on it. You never know what kind of difference you’re making for them in this weird, hectic world.
An Addendum (9/29/17) - Many people have reached out to me in many different ways, very worried and concerned about me having a conversation with this random man. I'd like to say thank you for the concern! But I also want to stress that never, at any point in time, did I feel unsafe or uneasy.
I was just a step outside of my office building, multiple co-workers passed me and asked if I was okay, and I never was worried that bad things were going to happen. If I had, I had many options of where to go to get away. There was no possibility for me to be cornered in the situation that I was in whatsoever. Please, never put yourself in a situation where you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Get out of there, fam. Keep yourself safe.
When I encouraged people to listen to others, I may have listed the "local rambling man" as my example, but that's not exactly what I meant.
I mostly meant listen to each other. Your friends and your family, your roommates. Not everyone is going to stop you outside and dump their entire life story on you, but that doesn't mean they don't have something they want to share or get off of their chest.
When I said listen, I meant to yourself. Keep note of the stories you want to share and the feelings you want to embrace and find someone who is willing to sit down and be that ear for you.
In a world that is harder and harder every day, just be there for each other, and give grace when you can.
An Addendum (9/29/17) - Many people have reached out to me in many different ways, very worried and concerned about me having a conversation with this random man. I'd like to say thank you for the concern! But I also want to stress that never, at any point in time, did I feel unsafe or uneasy.
I was just a step outside of my office building, multiple co-workers passed me and asked if I was okay, and I never was worried that bad things were going to happen. If I had, I had many options of where to go to get away. There was no possibility for me to be cornered in the situation that I was in whatsoever. Please, never put yourself in a situation where you feel unsafe or uncomfortable. Get out of there, fam. Keep yourself safe.
When I encouraged people to listen to others, I may have listed the "local rambling man" as my example, but that's not exactly what I meant.
I mostly meant listen to each other. Your friends and your family, your roommates. Not everyone is going to stop you outside and dump their entire life story on you, but that doesn't mean they don't have something they want to share or get off of their chest.
When I said listen, I meant to yourself. Keep note of the stories you want to share and the feelings you want to embrace and find someone who is willing to sit down and be that ear for you.
In a world that is harder and harder every day, just be there for each other, and give grace when you can.
--
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