Store of Books

I get pretty tired of blue and black ink.

At least in pen form there's some variation because when it comes down to printer ink, you can't really turn in blue font homework--but oh how I have turned in many-a-papers in blue because I got a message from the printer that the black was low (sounds pretty racist to me too).

I'm also kind of neurotic when it comes to note taking.

I've got a system that involves two different colors of ink and I have expanded into a multiracial smorgasbord that Crayola could be b-slapped by.

Anyway, I went to find some more color prism spectrum appropriated pens.

And there she was walking between the fictional books which included some Greek mythology and hauntingly enough, a copy of the Red Badge of Courage that I was supposed to have read the summer before honors junior English in high school but I was not on the train of pre-start-of-school homework so I Cliffnote-d the crap out of that book AND something about Huckleberry Finn.

She was a former co-worker from the M^2 days and we referred to her breed of employee as the middle-aged moms that dealt with the other middle-aged moms but in some circles you could even call them customer support but mostly I called them the super moms because they had instant answers for taking care of sick idiots like me who didn't know what to do when sick with sickness.

At first I didn't even know if it was her or not but I called out her name and she turned around and there it was: the smile of comforting motherness I had come to love when days at work were just so dang annoying.

I gave her a big hug and as we broke off and her arms fell slowly to the side, I noticed that she didn't have her wedding ring on. It was a weird observation and I found myself taking note of how odd that it was something I had noticed.

But I already knew something was wrong before she even spoke.

She was getting divorced.

I started checking in to see how she was and in the most awkward situation ever on earth, I found myself giving someone else who was not only older than me but has a lifetime of experiences but there I was dealing out advice like drugs or Uno cards.

But I can't escape the fact that I was randomly there at the right time and in the right place and for some astrological reason I had some other worldly knowledge and comfort with which to comfort her with.

She cried.

I watched her cry.

And at the end of the conversation, I had lifted someone up who wasn't expecting to be lifted up.

And somewhere it kind of settled in my mind that I was doing what I was meant to do.

And somewhere tonight, a middle-aged mom might not be crying herself to sleep tonight.

I'm okay with that--and above anything else what I want to do and why I want to do what I want to do has become clearer and spacious--exactly like the view I get from my new vantage study point in the library.