So there's a story I've been trying to tell for a while now. It happened in August, when everything was going wrong, when I was wandering home from a late-night jaunt to take care of some business. What it was is hardly important, except that I was dreading everything that was to come almost as much as I hated everything that had come before.
It doesn't matter. The point is, I took a wrong turn on the way home.
Maybe wrong isn't the word. It was a weird turn, and if I hadn't I would never have seen the woman sitting on the ground with her bike. I try to stop to help people when I think I might be able to, so I slowed down and gave her a concerned look. Before I could ask if everything was okay, though, she spoke.
"It's okay. Everything is okay. I promise."
I wished her a good night and kept going. I thought about it on the way home, but not a lot, because I had other things on my mind. Then I forgot, and was reminded again, and forgot again. And I realized that it's been a story for the New Year the whole time.
Sometimes you need someone to help you weather the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and sometimes, whether it's a warm night in a Seattle summer or a chilly New Year's Eve where the stars are burning bright, you can honestly promise the strangers passing by that everything is fine. Because she was more right about that than she probably realized: everything is okay. She was right then and she's right now.
A toast, then, to strangers on the wayside, to old friends, and to everything finally being okay.
Happy 2016.
