Chase down your passion like it's the last bus of the night. -Terri Guillemets
So much of her life had been spent sitting on that worn-out bench at the bus stop. She spent hours, days and even years watching other people load and unload, coming and going, from only God knows where. She studied the passengers in their comings and goings as if she were doing doctoral research. Intuition was a natural gift that allowed her to see into the souls of the hurried travelers. She knew who had riches and who was fronting. She could see who was desperate and who was running. Grief, not of her own, filled her body as she watched the long faces of the weary. Her heart pitter-pattered for the innocence of the children and the naive newlyweds.
She dreamed with, stood up for, and prayed silently for all the strangers. The young and old, the weary and the few who were filled to the brim with excitement. She gave up her seat on the bench, shared her umbrella, and forfeited her mittens when cruel weather demanded.
She witnessed the unfolding of stories, stayed present with the travelers, and tracked the moves of many, but she never got on that bus. Her identity was cloaked in her service to the passengers, accepting that she wasn't one of them. She knew she had a gift, and gave selflessly knowing the needs of the masses. At the end of the day, her heart would overflow as she'd reflect on all the beautiful humanity revealed on her journey which was the bench at that bus stop. Her entire life, she was content with her destiny on that bus stop bench.
She admired many, and never forgot a face. A man she had observed climb on and off the bus countless times, was no longer coming around. She had adored him from afar and his absence left a void. Word on the street was that the life of coming and going, climbing on and off the bus with no direction, had simply become too much. Knowing he wouldn't be back, the woman's world shifted that day. Remaining curious, she pondered the point of the bus, and questioned its purpose and where it could take her if she dared to step on it. Would it take her where she wanted to go? Or would it take her out like the man she was missing?
She saw the faces in her scattered mind, all of them. Resisting the shame of losing her identity with the passengers, she knew she no longer had the resiliency to sit on the bench. But she also rejected the wild unknown of the bus adventure. The woman intentionally held the face of the absent man at the forefront of her memory, leaving the bus stop, carrying him with her in her heart.
At home, she rearranged her belongings, purging what no longer served her. Packing light, she returned to the bus stop, late at night, just as the bus began to pull away. There she stood with a choice that would change the trajectory of her life forever. Stay on the bench and return to what was known and safe, or chase that bus. Knowing that albeit much less, she had everything she needed to catch the bus and see where the road would take her. She took a deep breath, ran like hell, and for the first time, she rode that bus in pursuit of her own adventure.
