Birthday Thought

written on March 14

It's my birthday today.

For a gift, my best friend in the whole world (for 25 years!) gave me a train ticket to come see her in Maine. And even though I'm now the ripe old age of 43, I've never gone anywhere by train. I've taken the T in Boston, but that doesn't really count as taking the train to go somewhere.

I'm blogging from the train right now, as a matter of fact. We just stopped at a station and more people are boarding. More people...that I don't know.

I realized today, sitting in North Station in Boston that there are a lot of people I don't know. Yes, I realize—duuuuuh. But it's never really been something that hit me like it did this morning, watching hundreds of people—hundreds!--pouring out of doorways and scurrying to their destinations, their faces grim and intent on their business. I looked, I watched, and I realized. Out of all those people, there was not one familiar face.

The hazards of going somewhere, I guess.

The thing is...I saw all those people, and realized that there are more. Many more. So many, I could never see them all. Not in this lifetime. It's almost...scary. If I were prone to panic attacks, I would have had one, right there in North Station. Gasp. I felt so damn small and inconsequential, and very, very humbled.

The really strange thing is—out of all those hundreds of people—NONE of them were talking to each other. Even when I took the Orange Line from Back Bay to North Station; jammed together in that train, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, we were a rocking clump of people that did not communicate. Not a whisper, no eye contact...nothing. So now I really understand how a person can feel their loneliest even when they're surrounded by others.

When I got to North Station, I found a small group of middle school kids on a field trip, huddled together in a self-conscious mass of hormones, giggling and showing off, and I moved closer to this cluster of humanity. It was warm, alive and familiar. The boys, pretending to play baseball, the girls, trying to look grown-up despite their braces and awkwardness; I felt better around them. Especially when one of them made eye contact with me and grinned because he knew he'd caught me smiling at how goofy his friend acted. I felt less panicked at this human contact. This connection.

I guess we lose that ability or desire to connect with people as we grow older. Even me, today, on my birthday at the age of 43; spending most of my morning trying to be one of the crowd, intent on my business and very lonely.

I think that I'll spend this year of my life trying to meet more people. So that next year—if my best friend gives me another train ticket—maybe I'll actually know someone in the crowd.