Never Saw the Sky

Of late I have been preoccupied with two topics in particular. The first is the idea of being genuinely happy with what your life is overall and the second is trying to understand relationships, be they on the level of friends or significant others. Of course, I've talked to my friends and coworkers about these topics, but the issues are still "open" and occupy my mind a lot. In an odd bit of synchronicity, these issues came to the forefront at today's visit to the GAP.

I headed visited the GAP to buy some pants for judging at GenCon and to buy a gift for my friend's birthday. While there, I met an older (50s or 60s?) saleswoman named Mary. She helped me find the pants I needed and, for some reason, took an interest in me. Amazingly I didn't initiate the topics of discussion. She initiated them all and the topics were just those that I've been pondering on a daily basis.

Initially she asked me about my job and I told her how I'm in research that is trying to understand and cure osteoporosis. We talked a lot about the disease in general, but in the end she said that when watching me talk it was very clear from my mannerisms and expressions that I am genuinely happy with my life and she also said that my humanity/compassion is very obvious as well.

I told her that I don't think of myself as all that happy because I tend to get wrapped up in the things that don't go my way or things I wish I had, but don't have. She said that that is a difficulty we all have to deal with and that it requires action on our part to seek out, seize, and cherish those things/people, no matter how small and fleeting, that bring us joy.

The conversation soon shifted to how rough it can be when you don't have someone you can be close to and share your life with. To this she responded that it is all about timing and that one has to realize that despite what one "wants", they might not be ready for it. She said that a person needs to be psychologically and emotionally ready for a relationship because one has to put a tremendous amount of energy into it, not only so it will last, but so it will not destroy them. She agreed that it can be hard to appreciate this idea, but told me to keep pondering what she said because if one "pushes it," they could wind up like her - in a "relationship" for 12 years, finally realizing that it had to end, finally becoming free again, stepping outside, looking up and realizing that all these years she never saw the sky.