the strange way home
I took the long way back home. Inside the bus, an old lady sat beside me. She asked for some change, then the conversation picked up; about school, family and relationships.
She said, "Make sure you study hard, because I know that your parents, like many other working parents, are doing what they are doing for the simple reason that they are proud to know you've come this far. Your success and happiness in life are proof of their hardwork. Whether they feel it's worth it or not, it's up to you."
I just smiled at her knowing that whatever I said could not fully justify the whole truth in her words. She started rummaging her bag only to give me a handful of sweets as she realized that there was no way in hell I was going to reach home on time for break fast (it was 20 minutes before breaking fast time and I was still at the Circuit Road area.) I thanked her and told her I really appreciate it. Before alighting, she asked me if I was seeing anyone. In my heart I was saying, "Here we go again. Why, oh why, people just can't let it rest?"
I told her, no. Really no.
What she said after that caught me off-guard. "I know. You look broken, like you've been hurt. You look like you're trying to make sense of everything and just trying to make do of whatever that's left in you. Remember, the most important thing you should look for in a man is honesty. You love him a whole lot don't you?"
Again, I just smiled and thanked her a few more times for the sweets but really, it was so much more of her wise words. Maybe God made my path cross with hers for a reason.
It was weird. It took me a few seconds to actually grasp what she had just said. Everything she said to me, from the first minute to that last 20 minutes are so true and so real. I remember then what Tzetze used to say to me, "Sometimes these things, only outsiders can see. You can't see it because you are in it."
It's funny because I used to tell myself that I'm just a girl. Even if I were to die tomorrow, my absence will not be felt. I'm not trying to save the world. But if each day I've been there for a person or that I just make that one person smile, that's the world to me. And I guess that old lady made me see that, even with all those things that happened to me that made me feel so lost, that part of me is still true. That part of me, it's still there.
=)