lucky me

When I changed jobs a few months ago, it was a decision that I struggled with. I loved my old job but commuting 3 hours a day was getting to me. It was ok for the first year and bearable the second but slid rapidly into intolerable in the third year. I opted against a move to 'the Hammer' and, instead, began looking for a job closer to home. Which I found. My new job, 20 minutes from home, happens to be in the general area where I grew up. A suburb large enough that I'm not backtracking on myself but small enough that I'm occasionally surprised by random ghosts from my past - like my drive through my old 'hood a few days ago.

When I think of the encounters of these last few months a vivid picture forms in my mind: one of those DNA ladders - two separate streams of energy periodically connecting at discrete, finite points. I'm beginning to think that this may be the reason I was called to take this job: so that the now-me would have the opportunity to cross paths with the then-me.

In another installment from my 'suburban encounter' series, today I ran into my sister's ex-boyfriend from highschool. He looked the same but different, which is probably exactly how I looked to him, but I recognized him immediately. B. was a sweet, naive, eager-to-please, ignored boy who, despite having the best of intentions, always messed up. This combination frustrated my family while, at the same time, endeared him to us.

B. was the boy who, excited at being involved in our family Christmas, yelled out "How to give head" as the answer in a game of cherades involving extended family and friends. He's also the boy who made my mother and I cry when, presented with a crappy, grocery store cake for his 16th birthday, he gleefully cried out "this is my first birthday cake". How can someone reach the age of 16 without ever having been presented with a birthday cake?

I always remember this when I think of B. So much potential but absolutely no support. As much as my sisters and I can find reason to complain about the way we were raised and the choices my parents made, something went ok. I was reminded of this again today when I ran into B. Living with his mother and her boyfriend in the same neighbourhood we grew up in, working in construction, weighed down by massive personal debt incurred by an unfaithful ex-girlfriend, talking optimistically about a patent he's developing that should bring in the big bucks...we're not that.

I don't mean "that" to sound as judgemental as it may. What I mean is, my sisters and I have done so much and moved so far. When I think of us as a pack, I experience a surge of energy marked by independence, strength and fearlessness. If one of us were this way, I could accept it as a personality quirk; however, we're each of us like this - albeit in our own unique way. At different times in our lives we may have been ignored, underappreciated, and underestimated; and we may have felt unloved but I don't think for a minute that we ever were. Regardless of what churns about in my conscious mind, I think I know that at a very intrinsic, core level I am backed by fierce, supportive love and I think that is what separates me from B. Just that.