Hello Gene

I was in utter despair yesterday. While scribbling my fury into my journal on the train back to New Jersey, this older man came and sat next to me.

"What's that you're writing? A journal?"
"Yes."

Sometimes people disturb me when I'm writing in my diary, sometimes they don't out of courtesy. Sometimes it's invasive, sometimes it isn't. The man smelt of whiskey and cigarettes but he was dressed nicely enough so I took his gesture as being a friendly one. What can I say, I like my whiskey.

He was from Arizona. He spoke to me about his 29 year old son he was trying to bring home; a failed recovering drug addict. His daughter who he enjoys drinking wine with and her three month old son. We talked about life, cheesy as it sounds. I can have these conversations with 60 year old men and feel more myself than when I'm talking with anyone else because that's how I write in my journals. I write because I have ideas sometimes too complex to speak out loud but older men understand completely. I guess with older women there's a physiological aspect of it where we start to relate to one another. A maternal aspect that I'm not prepared enough for nor do I sense them as being universal enough for me to comfortably follow.

"Why do you write?" he asked.
"Because I there are some things that I can't say out loud."
"Like secrets?"
"Some of it. Sometimes it's just that the language or the level that they're on, I don't think my friends would understand or it would be an effort for me to make them to understand."
"But why do you write? I mean, you're happy with yourself, aren't you?"
"Most days, I am. Just like everyone else, I have my days... I write because I have a terrible memory."

I'm not as good at getting things out of other people but it was a great conversation. He missed his stop so I called him a cab.

"Do you ever read back to what you wrote?"
"Sometimes. I can't always because I'm not good with humiliation."
"Humiliation? What's there to be embarrassed about?"

He offers me a cigarette, which I accept.

"It's just that, you spend your whole life trying to get better. You go through things in the past, mistakes that were necessary but once that phase is over, it's hard for me to look back at it because I know now how I could have handled it better and it's a little embarrassing that I made these mistakes but I don't blame myself for it. I wouldn't be who I am now if it wasn't for them."
"That's right but it's nothing to be humiliated about."
"Besides, writing is important because even if I push that phase of my life away and it's almost impossible for me to look back sometimes, it's like I've paid my respects to who I was at that point in my life. Everything passes but that version of me existed and I have proof that it did."
"If I was fourty years younger, sweetie, I would love you."
"Do me a favour and tell the boys that they should know better."

While waiting outside my dorm, he found an old vinyl record in the trashcan which he recognised and I didn't.

"Once you hit 61, you're 21 (points at me). Once you hit sixty-one, you have to punch yourself in the head to get out of bed. You lose that youthful enthusiasm and you wake up wondering if you're gonna die yet. You anticipate it."
"I think I look forward to it."
"Dying? Sweetie, you don't wanna die."
"No. I definitely want to live but... in a nice way, I look forward to the idea of dying one day. I see death as kind of a rite of passage, like puberty or menopause."
"That's twisted."
"See, that's why I have to keep a journal."
"I like you."
"I like you too."
"You know life doesn't get any better than this, right?"
"I know. I really do. But you just have to keep making each day look a little more different."
"And you try."
"... and you try."

So he rubbed my shoulders and kissed me on the cheek. When the cab came and left with his souvenir. I call it a coincidence that he found that vinyl. That conversation was supposed to happen. I wondered where he was the first time he heard the record. He used to play the guitar and thought about those days while he softly hummed songs he  forgot he knew.

The past week has been tricky but last night, although I haven't quite figured out why, made me feel better. It just showed me that I knew myself really well. That and I have the maturity of a 60 year old man. Coincidences come when a phase of my life is sealed or when change is imminent. I've moved out of my dorms, semester is over. Time to turn a new leaf, new continent over. You'd think that I'd still have plenty of time to start getting older but I rush things. I don't want to put my life on hold for anything anymore.