Does living in the Northeast turn you into an asshole?
Surely not for everyone, and not totally. But sometimes I feel myself becoming "harder", less friendly to strangers, not caring as much. Which is very disconcerting!!! But at least I'm recognizing it and trying to change it...
Today, I was walking to class (hurrying, that is) and this guy walking towards me dropped his hat-- it fell out of his bag. I was walking towards the fallen hat, staring at it, and I didn't even think to pick it up and jog after him to give it to him. Then this construction worker (no joke, the construction workers in Boston are oddly angelic) walking past yells, "Hey buddy, you dropped your hat!!!" and that finally shamed me into kneeling down and picking it up and handing it to the guy who had dropped it (whose name is Benny, by the way... he lives across the hall from this guy Matt who used to help me write my papers for my Post-Modernism class last semester... it makes it even worse now because I sort of know the guy). He said "thanks", but I felt horrible.
So as I continued to walk to class, I vowed to not let myself slip into that abyss, to not become that hard, angry Bostonian who refuses to stand up on the T to let an old, blind, crippled woman sit down, who drops their coffee cup onto the street and doesn't care about it, who'll murder a Yankees' fan in cold blood. I love Boston, and I love Bostonians, for all their latent anger, but I still want to be Laura.
So once I hit the College of Arts and Sciences hallways, I saw this kid on crutches struggling to get into a class room door, and I opened it and held it for him, and he grinned at me and said "Thanks." And this time I didn't feel horrible, I felt nice.
Today, I was walking to class (hurrying, that is) and this guy walking towards me dropped his hat-- it fell out of his bag. I was walking towards the fallen hat, staring at it, and I didn't even think to pick it up and jog after him to give it to him. Then this construction worker (no joke, the construction workers in Boston are oddly angelic) walking past yells, "Hey buddy, you dropped your hat!!!" and that finally shamed me into kneeling down and picking it up and handing it to the guy who had dropped it (whose name is Benny, by the way... he lives across the hall from this guy Matt who used to help me write my papers for my Post-Modernism class last semester... it makes it even worse now because I sort of know the guy). He said "thanks", but I felt horrible.
So as I continued to walk to class, I vowed to not let myself slip into that abyss, to not become that hard, angry Bostonian who refuses to stand up on the T to let an old, blind, crippled woman sit down, who drops their coffee cup onto the street and doesn't care about it, who'll murder a Yankees' fan in cold blood. I love Boston, and I love Bostonians, for all their latent anger, but I still want to be Laura.
So once I hit the College of Arts and Sciences hallways, I saw this kid on crutches struggling to get into a class room door, and I opened it and held it for him, and he grinned at me and said "Thanks." And this time I didn't feel horrible, I felt nice.