Unplanned Feelings

I found a small boy sleep­ing on the steps with a birth­mark cov­er­ing his face and won­dered what kind of god would give a child that.

—Sarah Miles, The End Of The Affair

I’m in such a weird mood tonight.

Met a nice, loqua­cious young man at the bus stop. I saw him hob­bling there, his man­gled gait vis­i­ble from the win­dow of my house. His voice was loud and verg­ing on uncon­trolled, “My car is in the shop, I have to be there by sev­en, I can’t be late, I’m coach and man­ag­er and med­ical staff of the Generals, so they can’t go on the field with­out me.”

With inno­cent, child­like can­dor, he con­tin­ued. I won­dered if he was aware. If peo­ple took him less seri­ous­ly. If I real­ly under­stood who he was.

He got on the bus first, and in a con­fi­dent tone, said to the bus dri­ver, “Can I get pri­or­i­ty seat­ing?”. I con­sid­ered sit­ting next to him and con­tin­u­ing our con­ver­sa­tion, but by the time my trans­fer print­ed out, he already start­ed with the per­son next to him, “I can’t be late. I’m coach­ing foot­ball…”.

So I cried on the bus because Misery Is A Butterfly, even though it was­n’t loud enough. Even though I put it on. I was doing it to myself, you see, because of this mood. Because I need it and want it and won­dered how I’ve ever lived with­out it.

I’ve been read­ing Beautiful Losers. Can you tell?

I don’t plan on writ­ing these things.

Then again, I don’t plan on feel­ing this way.

4 comments

  1. There are few peo­ple who know they need this. Most hide from it.
    I’m hap­py you know it, because of what it sig­ni­fies.

  2. Sometimes you need to go thru. Better than rerout­ing around. Pausing, indulging in extra long cathar­sis is vig­or­ous­ly redemp­tive some­times.

    Seems to be the sea­son for lurch­ing shar­ings. I was walk­ing on Wellington and a “innocu­ous­ly gener­ic look­ing” woman swerved to my side of the side­walk and declared, “Ma’am, fight against the rev­o­lu­tion.” We both kept going.

  3. A lot of life hap­pens that way, I’m sure you know. Unplanned and unex­pect­ed.

  4. @xibee — I don’t think I’ve ever hid from it, but I have tried to deny it in the past. Not any­more.

    @Pearl — “Going through” is such a great way to put it. I think there’s some­thing in the weath­er this time of year. People change as the sea­sons change.

    @Vi — Yep, and I’m glad that I can appre­ci­ate it.

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