Today, I had a wonderful conversation with a perfect stranger on the train — although, I don’t feel that any of the daily commuters are strangers. We all ride downtown together to go to work, every day.
I have met some very interesting people riding the train. There is the comic book writer, a musician who owns a print business, a writer who also works in finance, and today, a former Air Force man who now works for Boeing.
The conversation today was encouraging and affirming. The man is a Christian and struggling to balance family time (three young kids and a wife) with work. I had another train friend, an attorney, who dealt with the same issue and eventually left the practice of law to form a company with his brother in Savannah, GA.
Although I love my train time for writing and I very much appreciate my job downtown, I also deal with the restrictions inherent to it. The reality is that I work an hour (at minimum) away from home. This restricts my activity at home and in the community to nights and weekends. That works most of the time, but not all the time. I make up some of the difference by e-mail correspondence and social networking, but it doesn’t work when it comes time to get your hands in the dirt to plant or to pull weeds or babysit or meet with someone at the local school.
Life is full of hard choices. So, I am glad to meet a friendly soul with something good to say every now and then, and apparently, out of the blue.
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