I'm rounding the corner on my bike and looking over my shoulder in the opposite direction. No cars is a good sign since I'm coming up on the intersection and I need to cross.
It's a cool day; damp but not wet from yesterday's rain. It looks like it might again, but I chose to bike anyway. I figured the worst that happens is that I get wet. Realistically, I'd just wait it out at the coffee place if I had to.
I look up at the light and wait for the walk sign. Across the street, I notice a guy pushing a stroller and holding a cup of coffee. He's waiting to cross, but I can't see his face now because he's bent down behind the stroller. Still, I'm thinking he looks a lot like my neighbor. Then the light changes. We each start to cross and, sure enough, it's him.
"oh hey!"
I see the flash of recognition and his face bursts into a smile.
It was a quick encounter; it's not like we could stop and chat in the middle of the road, but it was truly a pleasant surprise. I'm smiling now, too, pedaling onward toward the coffee shop, and I'm betting that's where he just came from.
I used to run into people I knew everywhere.
It was sort of a running joke among my friends—if we went out somewhere, they'd place bets on how long it'd be until I bumped into some I knew that they didn't. Then, they'd try to guess how many other times it would happen the same day. I was involved in a lot of stuff across many social groups back then. And I never sat still—I was always bopping between them.
As I'm walking into the coffee shop, it dawns on me that I went through a bit of a self-inflicted dry-spell there. About five years' worth, actually... give or take. My spirits lift on my way to order when I realize I've been running into folks again quite a bit. I literally ran into someone I went to high school with last week on the sidewalk while I was out jogging. And another friend from college biked past me by the water a few days ago. I even ran into an old coworker at a concert recently that I haven't seen since leaving that company.
Settling into a table along the brick wall, I'm feeling like I'm "back." Back to being the me without the social training-wheels from before I got sober. And I'm thinking it's time to tell my friends to start placing bets again.
When’s the last time you realized you’d changed seemingly overnight?
onward.
For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.