wisdom from strangers

You can reveal your truest form to strangers, because what you say remains inconsequential to their lives. You are nothing, so you can be everything.

So, sauntering the streets of Europe at night, I found it the very best time to find interesting people. Because with the lack of light, what was hidden in the shadows seemed to show itself.  At least, this was true in my case. 

I got the opportunity to meet people that made me reconsider some “facts” that I accepted for a majority of my life. And I want to share them here because frankly, I can’t stop thinking about it. 

Mr. Tennis: 

I met Mr. Tennis after attending my housemates’ soccer match. He seemed unassumingly normal, but after an unexpectedly long walk to the bus station (all of the metros close down at midnight in Barcelona during the week), we got to talking and I figured out more about him –and myself– than I had ever thought. 

Mr. Tennis was given that name for a reason, having been signed to play in the US at the age of 13 and leaving his family in Morocco. After a successful college career, we now met in Barcelona where he was an entrepreneur of some sort. During that night, and the next when he took me to dinner, I had the most inspiring conversations of my life (not to give men all the credit, he could be pretty imposing and annoying at times) that I will carry for a long time. 

When I told him about my career goals, he didn’t wish me luck or speak to me in the half-encouraging half I-know-you-won’t make-it voice. He told me “then do it”. I responded, saying I wanted to, but I was afraid. And then he said: 

“If you’re scared that means keep going”.

We kept walking, and my friends kept laughing. He said it so nonchalantly, I could have tuned him out, but what I heard changed something in me. 

And he was right. Because if you’re scared, it means you want it so bad you would be distraught if you lost it. It means you need it to survive, it is a part of you. So, it means you have to move with the fear and the dedication alongside you to seize what you want, and keep going. To fight for yourself. 

…

The Bejeweled Lover: 

Smoking a performative cigarette outside of a live jazz bar in Florence, the Bejeweled Lover made himself known to me through slight glances, then full-on conversation. Though I had only just met this long-haired indie man decked head-to-toe in turquoise crystals, he felt the need to immediately tell me about his past loves, which is where it always gets juicy. 

“I was seeing someone in California, but it ended because of the distance,” he said with a cigarette hanging lazily from his lip.

 I could tell he was trying to sleep with me. It wasn’t working. I sympathized with him, then murmured some polite saying because under his guise, he did look genuinely upset.

“You’re so lucky,” is what he said next.  

“How so?” I replied, caught off guard by his readiness to wish to switch positions without even knowing my last name. 

“You’re young. And when you’re young you recover faster, from heartbreak.” he said hungrily, as if wanting to suck his youth back while thinking of whatever he thought was lost now. 

I thought for a long time after that. My friends were deep in other conversations, so I was left to fend this philosophical battle on my own. 

Though I did not fully agree, I took his words rather as a romantic mantra to always keep your head up. Because you can regenerate. Maybe not as fast as the skin cells on your hand, but you regrow into someone new. Because you don’t stop changing, ever. 

Maybe that is a scary thing, but I choose to see it in a way that lets me recover and keep going, stronger than before.

…

The wisest words are often spoken as a whisper from someone you will never meet again. So keep your ears open and keep exploring.