Year

I don't really know whether to look forwards or backwards. Time is funny like that. Maybe I should just stay trapped in now. Like the woman I talked to the other day. About twenty years ago, she was in a coma for eleven days. She had been riding her bike in San Francisco (something I do with a certain irregularity but with great pleasure) when she was hit by a car. Her advice: live every day like it's your last, because you might not wake up to see the next. I bumped into her as I was running in my neighborhood and she was walking her dog. We started talking because she made some crack about running the Bay to Breakers. So I stopped and we chatted, and I learned about her daughter with a learning disability and how she likes running to the ocean and how I absolutely have to run the Bay to Breakers next year for its centennial. What a sweetheart.

But under different circumstances, I might not have so wholeheartedly approached her the way that I did. I'm not sure if the version of me from a year ago would have allowed myself to give a stranger a chance to open up a little. Well it was a nice chat, and it only reinforced the idea that the most valuable things I can ever hope to accumulate are the connections I make with other people.

What a nice thought.