Speaking with Strangers

Hello blog,

It's me again. Remember me? I used to write in you all the time, and then I just stopped. And now, I return, and maybe only because I have no one else to speak to. I turn to you because this feels strange - strangely comforting. You are a stranger to me now. You don't judge me because you don't know me anymore. All that I have done, all that I have lost - you don't know any of that. You, stranger, you!

I saw you at the swimming pool today. I didn't know your name, and I don't think you knew mine either. We exchanged a couple of sentences worth of a conversation, but that was quite enough, right? I can meet you at the shopping center, at the gym, at the office, at the coffee shop, at the restaurant, at the temple and everywhere else. You always have a different face on you, but that doesn't bother me one bit because I know it's you. You're the stranger that I know because you're the one that I don't know.

I've known, or not known you for quite some time now. Over the years, I think we've developed quite the bond, and I can rely on you when I'm feeling especially selfish - I think of you when I need you, and then forget that I know you at all, which is all the more funny because I don't know you to begin with. I guess what I'm trying to say is that since we had quite the relationship going, I thought I knew well, or at least predict you. But no! You work in strange ways, oh stranger! I met you yesterday - met you someplace that I never thought I'll see you, and in ways I thought were never possible. I was surprised because I thought I always would see you wearing unfamiliar faces making unfamiliar noises - the essential part of your charm, really. All shock with no awe, I saw you behind the eyes of one of the most familiar set of eyes of my life. For the first time, the face was familiar and so was the noise you were making, but it all felt very different, very distant.

Oh estranged friend, I do understand. I do understand your trepidation with trusting other non-barking and non-mewing animals again, but its been pretty long, no? It's been a long time since bad things things happened to you and I know you've fought for a lot a things that should have been yours to begin with. I guess you're like a stone which has been rolling in the valley for so long that you've changed shape - making it, for the first time, a case of new things wrapped in a seemingly familiar pocket-sized pack.

I don't know what you're feeling. All I know is that I want you to be happy. If you truly are, then I guess I'm at peace with the world. But if you aren't, then I guess I'll have to fight to make the world right again.

Bless you, stranger. I'll be around...