Wednesday, August 6, 2008

My thoughts exactly

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:

Anonymous said...

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