Street Smarts

I Chose to Trust My Intuition, Would You?

The other day, I decided to visit the Bronx Zoo with a good friend of mine. It would become my first visit ever, and I was looking forward to spending this gorgeous early spring day outdoors.

I took the train from Brooklyn and prepared myself for the hour long ride with a great book. I ended up arriving at my stop a while before my friend got there. Luckily, there was a small plaza with benches and I decided to sit down on an empty bench to dedicate myself to the page turner I had brought with me, again.

Then, something awkward happened.

The benches – there were about six of them – were not all occupied. There must have been about three benches that no one was sitting on. But this teenage girl decided to sit right next to me.

Why had she chosen to sit next to me instead of one of the completely unoccupied benches?

Nevermind I thought, and read on in my book. Then, the second awkward thing happened. The young looking girl lit a cigarette, or something that looked like a small cigar. It seemed strange, because she looked like she was only 16 (maybe a little older). She finished her smoke, and then quickly jumped up, making the bench jerk since it was loose, giving me the sensation as if I was about to fall off for a second.

She rushed off, and I felt relived that she was gone, had her sitting right beside me given me a strange sense of 'something is off.'

I did not see where the girl was headed exactly, so the more it surprised me when she ended up exactly where she sat before – next to me for a second time. But this time, she scoots closer.

"Excuse me, I think I got off at the wrong stop, so I need to call my brother to make sure I'm at the right stop. Can I use your phone?"

I realized that she must have observed me being on my phone to post a picture on Instagram, before I had started reading my book. Her scooting closer to me, made my inner alarm ring. I looked at her and tried to believe her for a second, but I could not. I was checking her out, and she looked like a sweet, innocent girl who I guess likes to smoke small cigars. But something kept telling me she is not what she appears to be. I replied:

"No, you can't have my phone."

She thought for a second.

"Oh... well, I am not gonna take your phone, you can have my sweater and hold on to it, I am not going anywhere."

I almost considered holding on to her sweater, but again, that would have been a bad trade off, and I already started picturing her running off with my phone. I somehow knew I could not trust her.

"I will not give you my phone, ask someone else!"

She shook her head and turned away.

I thought about the situation some more. What if she was telling the truth? I felt bad for not helping her out. What if she really was lost? So I picked up my purse (which was situated between us too – and I kinda did not want her to be able to grab it), and pretended I was looking for something inside of it, when I had an idea. I decided to make the following offer.

"I can give you 50 cents, and you can go and call your brother."

By the way, she had not made any attempts to ask anyone else for their phone.

"No, but I don't have his number."

I got slightly angry at her for thinking I was buying her lies.

"So how were you gonna call your brother if you do not have his number?"

She had the audacity to say this:

"I need to go on Facebook and write on his wall."

This time I shook my head.

She remained on the bench, right next to me. A little too close, and I was hoping for my friend to arrive soon, to finally have a reason to get up.

It Was the Night to Forget About Everything

To the Day He Wanted to Die

True Story

It is a nice summer evening in 2008, when a group of people gathers at a lake to celebrate their friend’s birthday. They are having fun, just enjoying the company of one another, without having to think about unemployment, relationship issues, and financial problems. It was a night to forget about everything else. The party involves alcohol and who knows what other substances. The evening proceeds into night, people are reaching a certain limit, starting to feel buzzed, when one of them has an idea--taking a dip into the lake.

One of the friends is hesitant. It is the birthday child. I call him Mike since I do not want to reveal his real name. He knows it is a bad idea, but his friends laugh off his concerns, so he decides to give it a shot. He jumps into the dark water, head first...

Mike wakes up weeks later from a coma. Soon realizing he cannot move from the neck down. He has been paraplegic from that day on.One of the first things he does, and will do almost daily, is calling his best friend asking for salvation; asking to be put out of his misery.

Next, he ends up at an institution for disabled people, most of who are mentally disabled. Mike is still clear in his head,but he is surrounded by people that can barely talk, have ticks, or are just slow. It's Mike's first night there, when a young woman who belongs to the nursing staff starts her shift. One of her colleges tells her they have a new resident. It is the night shift, and she decides to go into Mike's room to introduce herself as the night nurse. When she opens the door, she cannot believe what she sees.

He just stares at her, unable to say anything at all. They are the same age, not even thirty, and had known each other from their teenage years. He was one of the "cute guys", talented, too. She hid her tears that night and tries to be as professional as possible. The tears came when she went home that day.

Whenever she works, she spends time with him, they have conversations and she takes him out for walks in the park. At the point where he refuses to eat, she has to put him on a feeding tube. She tells herself she is just doing a job. Other nights, when she sees how degraded he feels when she has to release him from his excrement, since he can't use the bathroom anymore, she just focuses on the job, too. She tells me how at first his friends come and visit. But the longer he is there, less people show up to see him. At last, only a few family members and maybe one or two friends persistently show up.

A couple months later, he moves to a different institution. They haven't seen each other since.

Two weeks ago, she gets the news--he died at the age of 29.

I want to share this, because I really felt for this person. I want people to remember these kinds of stories and make them apparent in their lives. I want people to realize that life is short. We may never take a single day for granted. We may never not do what our heart desires, we need to be aware of how precious life is. Tell your loved ones you love them, and never leave after a fight, before you told that person you love them.

These kinds of stories help me to put things into perspective, and make wonder about what really is important in life—certainly not materialistic things.

I do not think we actually have to look in the face of death to be able to appreciate certain things as simple as the sunrise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jMDFYdITLE&playnext=1&list=PLEB29FB6006DFEEE8&feature=results_main