Pulses

  Young as I may be I like to believe that I have an understanding of life in its simplest form, and should you be permitting allow me to wast a modicum of your time by sharing a view of life. While I do not whole subscribe to the idea, life at times reminds me of a heart monitor.

  Should you go through your life living a dull routine of work as sleep, it might as well be the pause between beats.

  Alone, life can, for the most part be very flat.

  This isn't to say you can never enjoy time alone, I as many of you frequently do, but I find the spark of life, it’s pulse if you will, to be in the people I know and the people I have had only fleeting encounters with.

  As someone that lacks a car  or the ability to drive in general – though I'm working on it – Buses have been my default way to get from a to before the last seven years.

  And while I have not met the best people doing this I have met the interesting ones.

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  At the beginning of last year I met a woman while waiting for the bus. Since this encounter I have heard nothing of her, but the memory of the 15 minutes I spent talking to her is one that I believe I will remember for some time to come.

  She had only recently been reunited with her daughter, from what she told me her mother managed to take custody of her shortly after she was born and then left her in the dust.

  I never really queried into her life, she simply saw me and started talking, telling me her life story, trying to find her daughter again, having her husband incarcerated, and having been so deeply betrayed by her own mother.

  It was this conversation that showed me just how well off   my life had been up until that point. I am on good terms with both my parents and on the whole have nothing that I see as bad about my life.

  I'm lucky.

  Yet this woman, whose name I couldn't remember if I tried, had had it fare worse than I and yet was comfortable with venting probably one of the deepest and painful experiences of her life with someone she’d never met before.

  Though sometimes it can be god to vent to a person of no consequence. To talk to someone you’re likely never to see again. I admit I myself have done that.

  Near a year ago now, a friend of mine committed suicide, I hadn't spoken to him a while and I didn't really see him that often, though many of my close friends did.

  During that first week things were at its peak. My way of dealing with emotions like grief and anger are for the most part to not. Not healthy I know, but I manage, really I think I just don’t know how to yet.

  I was heading to work – via bus – a few days before his funeral and got to talking to the man next to me.

  Nothing major, just your basic hello’s and what not. He noticed I was slightly withdraw and down cast and asked me why.

  So I told him.

  I'm not sure why I did it, I just did.

  As we talked I told him a few of my fonder memories of my friend.

  The most prominent and the one I will never forget came mid-way through 2012. It is worth noting that said friend of mine was a year ahead of me, as were most other people involved in this story.
It was the middle of the night in the middle of winter and I got a call. As I woke up and sluggishly dragged myself to my phone I looked at the caller ID. Seeing his name on the screen I honestly debated whether or not to answer.

  I was pretty sure he was going to be drunk.

  He was.

  “Are you at your mums or your dad?!” He asked me as I answered him.

  “Why?” I asked sleepily, a little annoyed.

  “Cause I've got something for you!” He slurred.

  I sighed, debating on whether or not to say nothing and hang up but I figured he’d just keep calling until I either told him or turned off my phone.

  “My mums,” I told him.

  “Great We’ll be right there!” He said. “So don’t go back to sleep.”

  I sighed as I complied and hung up, huddling into my doona, reading a book to wake myself up. It was a little after one in the morning when I got another call from him.

  “Dude we’re outside, come out.” He said.

  I sighed to myself as I got up and went outside.

  It was winter.

  It was one in the morning.

  I was cold.

  I was not a happy camper.

  There were five of them waiting for me just past my driveway.

  “What do you guys want?” I asked, clearly grumpy with them.

  “We wanted to give you this.” He said as he handed me a street sign with my name on it.

  Needless to say my demeanour changed then and there. It was a great gesture and what truly made me think of him as my friend. While I know there were others involved and that he didn't do it alone, try as I might I always link that memory to hi most of all.

  Another pulse in my life.

  And just like that story was one of those pulses that stick out in my mind talking a complete stranger about it was another pulse that sticks to memory.

  And while there are those one of encounters that sticks out in your mind there are the more constant ones which still form an interesting memory in one’s mind.

  An example of this is a woman that lived on the same bus route as me. We never really talked save maybe the brief ‘hello’ at times.

  At first you never really notice it but if you see the same person in the same place you start recognising them in the crowd. And it was this way that I had an interesting over view of her life, nothing major or interesting, I just noticed as I sat on the bus.

  In the years since I’d first passed her by she’s had two kids and what I presume to be no small amount of issues. She always seemed tired and worn out, bags under her eyes and the like, like she didn't get much sleep.

  And as there are some that you notice through a routine there are others you get to know though a routine.

  Up the road from the high school I went to there was a small IGA with an attached take away place. In year twelve a friend and I got into the habit of going there around lunch when we had free periods.

  The shop was owned and mostly run by a woman in her early fifties. Needless to say she enjoyed a good flow of customers and she took a shine to sum of us.

  I was one of those people.

  It was the subtle ways that she showed that she liked some people more than others. Giving them the occasional discount if they didn't have the money or just giving us a little extra food when we ordered. That was really the extent of my getting to know her, but she was a nice woman and we often commented on how nice she was while we ate.

  All of these people I have mentioned have had little to do with my life but in a way have left their own interesting mark on my life as that person I met on the bus that one time, or that person that worked at a particular shop.

  And then, of course, there is you.

  For the most part you don’t know me, you've probably never met me, but I just added that for the people that watch me.

  As I sit here and recollect on all the pulses that occur in the real world I am reminded of the ones I have here.

  Like many of you there are those people that stick out in my mind and my life though this web site.

  Prominently among them it one Watchfulshepherd. (Hello)

  I have never met her and most likely will never meet her but like the people I have describe above she is one person that had left her own little mark on my life and created a memory I can easily say won’t fade away soon if ever.

  As is often the case a comment on a deviation led to a reply and from there a conversation.  Form there we started watching each other and had the occasional comment conversational bout this and that.

  It wasn't much yet from this I decided that seeing as her birthday was coming up I’d so a short story with her as the main character as a happy birthday thing.  From there it turned into one of
my biggest stories yet.

  And From there it continued with Christmas and birthday deviations as our way of saying ‘hey you’re awesome!’

  Of course there were and still are a great many people like this. People I don’t really know or have anything to do with yet still exist in my life in some way shape or form, leaving there own little lingering pulse in my memories.

  I’ll end it here and ask you one finally question.

  What pulses do you remember most?