Perspective: A double dose of DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF

Today was at best "meh". Let's just say the day's highlight was coming outside COB to a beating sun. It was such a bad day that the 80% humidity didn't even phase me. I immediately popped in my ear buds and headed hastily toward the metro, striding to the tempo of Jeff Buckley/Gary Lucas's Cruel - cloaked in an exaggerated scowl.

(insert metro rail ride across the Potomac in a train with a broken air conditioner)

I ran up the Pentagon's metro escalator and sprinted to catch the 16D bus. As I'm sprinting to catch this bus I only continue to sweat and I'm cursing the fact that I'll have a long hike to my place....16D drops me off blocks from my apartment.

I was convinced it couldn't get anything worse.

I sat down in the elevated section at the back of the bus to catch my breath. As always, I recognized half of the people (even the laughing cowboy that Erin gets so weirded out by....and in her defense, this guy is really weird) on the bus. Not that I keep a mental playlist of my commutes, but the song that came on turned out to be strangely appropriate for the way the remainder of my ride panned out. Melody Gardot's rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow came on just as the guy sitting next me (who was a real bench hog) got a phone call. Clearly he, like so many other bus-riding multitaskers, spoke at a volume where the guy in the car next to us could hear the conversation. Over the music I could make out that he was speaking to his significant other. It was as this point that the guy sitting to my left got a phone call. He had to yell louder than the bench hog to even hear himself think. I heard something about "Nah man,my cousin is in jail". I thought this was too good, so I paused my music but kept my ear buds in.

These are the two abridged versions of their conversations that lasted longer than my ride home:

Bench Hog: This guy was discussing with his significant other about job opportunities. He looked like a tired guy in his mid to late 40's and seemed/gave of the vibe of a well educated man. For whatever reason (ha) this guy had been jobless for quite some time he was discussing
how great it was to get a call back from a potential employer, close to where they live that paid $10/hour. My first thought was I really feel bad for this guy. You could hear in this guys voice that it was painfully demoralizing to even entertain a job like that at his current place in life, yet he had what seemed to be the right frame of mind and a good attitude about the whole situation.

Guy with incarcerated cousin: His conversation was much more perforated so it was harder to assemble the linear progression of these brow-raising comments and exclamations. I heard the following in broken English: Nah, man my first cousin....ya, it's killing my mother...my cousin's roommate ate some of his food from the fridge an my cuz caught him in the act...there were gunshots and stab wounds...the only reason we even know was because his roommate called 911 before he died.

Skeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrapdsokfjasdkfjadpsfkja. WHAT?

It was really hard to process both of these conversations at the same time. By the time I got home I felt a little more adjusted, but awful for both of those guys on the bus and even more awful for being such a pansy to let such trivial things effect me so much. I'm still trying to process my thoughts and feelings about the entire event.

My daily directive of Dr. Phil(esque) digestible drip (alliteration: who said English wasn't fun in HS?) is when you're having a bad day/feeling down/ in a bad mood, pick a complete stranger on the street and try to imagine what is going on in that person's life. Most people (reference above) have something equally awful, annoying and unfortunate going on in their lives too. Try to keep your head up. It's too easy to dwell on the negative, rather then revel in the sweet. Don't forget to acknowledge the sweet.

Maybe I'm the only one who loses perspective, but my guess is most of us do. The good news though is that somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue.

Here's to a wonderful Thursday.