merry market

merry market
Originally uploaded by Julep67

Last night, Mark had an eye appointment and I went along because he was getting drops and needed me to drive him home. In the end, his appointment took so long that he was okay to drive by the time he'd finished but I waited, all the same.

Not wanting to sit in the waiting room, I decided to sit in the van with the windows down and enjoy the first really summery feeling day we've had so far this year. The doctor's office is in a strip mall / plaza. Across the street from the plaza are four big apartment buildings. Due to the time of the day, there were a lot of folks heading on foot, walking toward the buildings (coming from the direction where I know the bus stop is).

I spent some of my time reading the news on my phone, some of it taking photos and some of it just watching the parade of people. One woman I saw reminded me a old school chum, someone I was very close to but lost contact with after she dove, head first, into some really seriously bad shit. the friend had moved to a pretty remote part of the country with her parents after high school. While she was up there, she developed a pretty serious drug habit. I wasn't entirely surprised that this happens because both of her parents were drunks. When she got back to town, we saw each other a few times and I tried and tried to see her (and her dad was calling me all of the time, wanting me to see her too, I guess he thought I'd be a good influence or something). Eventually, I got tired of trying and she just disappeared. About 15 years ago I ran into her brother and he said she was "okay" but I didn't press him for details.

So this all happened about 20 years ago. The woman I saw didn't remind me of what the friend looked like 20 years ago, rather, she looked like what I thought this friend would look like now. I'm pretty sure it wasn't her but if it was, it means that she's doing okay. Thinking that she could have the potential to be okay wasn't something that had occurred to me until yesterday. On some level, that actually makes me feel good.