Jessie.

i'm not even sure what direction this post is going to go in.  but i need to write and elaborate.  and put this down somewhere.

i was at a coffee shop today waiting to meet 2 of my friends for lunch.  i was an hour early, so took some books and my laptop and was trying to get some work done, while semi-people-watching (the usual).

there was the couple to my left, sitting at 2 different tables while each listening to their music through headphones and randomly checking in on their research projects or whatever they were doing separately but together.

the table to my right was first full of 2 couples and one young baby.  i believe the second woman must be VERY newly expecting, as talk was about ultrasounds, morning sickness and switching to cereal in the 4th or 5th month.  the likely-expectant-mother-from what-i-could-tell looked a million miles away.  i couldn't tell if it was because the parents of the baby sort of seemed like know-it-all Perfect Parents or what? but something was off.  that table then filled with some older ladies chatting about this and that.

but, at the table right in front of me, right in my eyesight, sat a man maybe around my age and his mother.  he walked by and greeted me.  he had a noticeable physical disability, but it wasn't easy to tell at first glance if it was something from birth or from something else.  he asked me how i was and i said "fine" and i asked the same back and he said, two times, "better than bad".  and we made some small talk about his response and laughed and that was that.  he greeted several others, and the thing about these types of interactions for me, i realized, is that OTHER people's discomfort is obvious and it makes me cringe.

he later asked me what i was reading/studying which led to a conversation between the 3 of us about higher education, our lives, the politics of it all, etc.  My friends arrived one at a time and I tried to wrap up my small talk with the new people.  Which became difficult.  Jessie, I later found his name, was staring. RIGHT AT MY HEAD.  And his body was perched right to the left of my friend, so as I was looking at her, I could just feel Jessie's eyes searing into my forehead or eyes or whatever.

when i got up to leave the table and order my food, i heard his mother beginning to lecture him.  something about if he wanted to have a 2-way conversation, then that was fine, but..... i got too far away to hear the rest.  he came to apologize and said that his mother was getting on him about staring at me.  but that he came to apologize, which gave him another excuse to "look into my beautiful eyes".  again, i was patient and accepted the apology graciously.  well,  i thought i did anyway.

i forget what happened in the next few minutes.  but i attempted several goodbyes with Jessie before he finally began telling me that he was in a horrible, traumatic car accident on May 19, 2007.  he said he had a horrible brain injury (the worst of them possible) and that he felt lucky that it happened to him.  that it made him smile.  i completely respect that Jessie shared that story with me although i couldn't exactly tell what the intention was.  was he embarrassed?  did he want me to know that he was "normal"?  i can't tell.

i really mean to say that there were several attempts at goodbyes.  and i think his mother was getting annoyed.  at one point he referenced that she was his "pawn" in getting to talk to me or something like that.  Jessie came to my table then and, in front of my friends, insisted that i write down his phone number.

and i did with that phone number what i would have done with probably 99% of other phone numbers that would have been given to me in that manner: i threw it in the trash.  half of me wanted to be that person who kept that number and called Jessie and met him for coffee and invested something of myself in another person.  and half of me just felt annoyed and confused and tired.  of phone numbers and time investments and.... i don't know.

i can't even articulate a take-away from today's scene.  i don't know why our paths crossed.  maybe they'll cross again, maybe they won't.  i feel badly that i'm not 100% the person who could take that phone number and call it up one day and make a new friend.  but i didn't feel compelled to do it.

i know what the take-away is: i hope Jessie is okay.  i hope he finds what he's looking for in life and i hope that people are kind to him and that he is oblivious when they are not, though i know that is wishful thinking on my part.  i hope his mother takes care of herself. i know that she probably never planned for her son to need her as much as he does for so long in this life.  i think they both had other plans.  and i admire them for their bravery in the face of tragedy.

that's all.