Waiting, but Not for the Bus

Most mornings, I pass a man waiting on a bus bench.

I don't know what he is waiting for, but I don't think it's the bus.

He has a blanket over him.  He has his coat on.  (Yeah, it's August.)  He has a huge backpack propped up on the bench next to him.  And a garbage bag.  A shopping cart stands nearby.

I come by sometime between five and six a.m., so my guess is that he's been there all night.  I don't get a real good look at him, because a) I'm just driving by and b) it's dark. But I've seen him enough times that I have a pretty good idea of the scene.

Sometimes, I want to stop and ask him what he's waiting for.

I mean, obviously, he's homeless.  He's picked that bus bench to "live on."  He probably doesn't think he's waiting for anything.

But I think he is.

I don't know what his problems are, or what led him to this place--in my city and in his life.  I can only make assumptions.  I can only guess.  So I know I could be totally wrong.

But my mind whirls as I pass him.  What would that be like, to wait at a bus stop night after night after night, protecting oneself from the elements and whatever else might be out there, waiting for a bus that you never take?  Or waiting for a different bus, maybe--one that never comes.

Because I'm sure, time after time, the bus does come.  And he probably ignores it, averts his eyes, whatever.  And doesn't get on.

And the bus driver is probably used to him being there and not getting on.

Or, maybe, he does get on, but then he comes back.

But I do want to ask him, "What exactly are you waiting for?  What do you think will happen if you keep sitting here?"  I wonder if he thinks something will happen that will change his life, or if someone will rescue him.  Does he think anything will change his life if he doesn't change something?  Is he just waiting to die?  I wonder if he has acclimated to the situation enough that he feels content with it, thinks he's fine.  Maybe he gets by with pan-handling.

I learned years ago from my job that there are two kinds of people in the world.  I know that's simplistic, but hear me out.  There are the people who drift through life as though they are on a little raft in a stream and just wait to see what happens to them.  They think of life just as the stuff that happens and have no real idea of what will happen next.  Then there are the people who realize that they can make the things happen to them that they want to have happen and can prevent other things from happening.  Not totally, of course, but to a large extent.  These are the people who paint their raft another color, or find oars so they can steer it, or jump off it and swim to shore and have a whole different life.  Or tidy up the raft and make it exactly the way they want it to be.

I've had people tell me that they couldn't job search, or keep a job, or finish working on their GED, or attend a workshop, because one day, something happened to them.  "I got pregnant," they will say, as though they have no idea what caused that nor that they can manage their lives around that.  Like catching pneumonia.  I mean, what did they have to do with that?  It just happened.  It was fate, their destiny.

"So, now you need that job even more," I point out, and they blink at me.

I wonder if the man on the bench is that kind of person.  I wonder if he ever thinks about getting on the bus and going somewhere else, or walking down the street and applying for a job, or finding a way to clean up, or going to church.

Maybe I should talk to him and get his story and thoughts.  

I think we have all been like that to some extent at some point in our lives.  I remember about three times where I was really stuck and had to make a dramatic change in order to stop spinning in circles.  No, it wasn't easy.  But I was getting sick to my stomach from the spinning.  You know what I mean?

Sometimes, it's taken me years to be ready to change something I need to change.  It depends on what I'm thinking, what my fears are.

I wonder that he isn't sick already from the spinning.  Personally, I think I'd last about an hour in his situation.  I hope I would do something else by then.  I wonder if he thinks he can't?

I was once told in a seminar that they control elephants by chaining one foot to a stake when they are young so that the elephant learns it can only go as far as the length of the chain.  Then they can take the chain off its foot, because the elephant will still think it can only go that far.  I don't know if that is true, but it makes a good point.

Often, the chains that keep us back are only in our minds.  Really.

We could get on the bus, and go somewhere else.