Written on a third-floor women's bathroom wall in a Barnes & Noble on the Lower East Side of Manhattan:
"I am leaving in one week. I have lived here for four years, and when I'm gone, no one will know I was ever here."
I have not been able to shake those two sentences from my mind for a week now.
I thought about it while serving random customers at the coffee shop after I'd been there for six hours because after that long, everyone looks the same.
I thought about it while I was shoving my way through the throngs of people near Penn Station while giving myself some retail therapy.
I thought about it while sitting on the subway and watching people get on and off the trains.
I don't know who wrote that simple sentence, but wish I did. I want to know the girl or woman who needed so desperately to make sure that she mattered to someone, even if it was only to random strangers making a quick stop in the first stall of a bookstore bathroom.
I want to know because I know and have those feelings. I know that I'm also the faceless person in line at a coffee shop, shopping near Penn Station, and on the train.
Our plans are to live here for three to five years, but even if I was here for a lifetime, would it matter?
1 comment:
Yes it would matter to me your mother. And you don't have to be a faceless person in New York if you make connections with everyone you see- be it a smile, an eye connection, a hello, a touch on the back, someone to just sit and listen. You matter, and especially to me. Mom
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