Strangers on a train

One day this summer, I was very sad about something.

I put on my favorite brown chiffon dress and went into Manhattan to have dinner with a friend. He was sweet and consoling and it distracted me for a few hours. But around midnight, I took the train back to Jersey City. And I sat on the train realizing that my sweet Casey was dead and that I hated my job and I’d messed something up with someone I cared about, and that there were several other disappointments swirling around me that I couldn’t fix. I sat there on the train, staring into space and trying really hard not to cry.

The next day, on Craigslist Missed Connections, I saw a posting that said, “To the sad girl on the PATH train.” Someone wrote, “You were a brunette in a beautiful brown dress. You got on at 14th Street around midnight and got off at Grove Street Station. You looked like you were fighting back tears the whole time. I just wanted to say that I hope everything works out.”

I don’t know who wrote that Missed Connections posting. I hadn’t even looked at any of the faces on that train that night. But it made me feel better about things, if only for a minute. It made me feel like maybe the universe is a caring place.

And even though Casey is still dead (that sweet, soft face against my knee, that expression of mischief and wisdom, that really horrible dog-breath)- truthfully, things are better now.

Pain is the place where our hearts are arguing with What Is So. (I was thinking last night about that little book, “Who Moved My Cheese?” which – I admit through embarrassment- taught me a lot when I read it years ago.)

If I were on a train of some sort, and I saw someone that I thought might be feeling very sad, I probably wouldn’t make the effort to post on Missed Connections. I don’t think I’d take the time to write anything unless I was reasonably sure my words would be read. Missed Connections seems like such a long shot.

I don’t know though. I think if I thought the person might read my words, maybe I would take the time to say something, even if I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Knowing even as I wrote something that the bad feelings WILL demand their due time. And what do I know, anyway, about the hearts of strangers? Some people are braver than I, keeping on the game face despite feeling rotten. Maybe it’s presumptuous for me to assume things.

It’s just that life sometimes feels very hard indeed. And although there are people it would be totally inappropriate to accost with words about feelings, change, pain, and moving cheeses-- sometimes a girl just wants to send a shout out. To say, I know I appear to be a stranger on a train, but I am with you. I send you good thoughts from the best part of my heart.

Maybe the connections that matter are never missed.

For what it’s worth, from a stranger on a train—I wish you well.