The Lonely Middle-Aged Woman Narrative

Personal Narrative- The Lonely Middle-Aged Woman

I got off the bus, not knowing where I had to travel in the cold night. I had a rough idea, but I’ve been having terrible luck trusting my rough ideas lately. I thought I’d ask someone for details. The passengers that had gotten off the bus with me obviously knew where they were going, because their strides were purposeful and quick. Looking for someone to help, I turned to a middle-aged lady in smart business clothes and voiced my question. She looked at me strangely for a second, as though I was speaking a foreign language, then just as quickly she snapped out of it and told me the direction I had to walk. Then she added "But I have to go that way. I can give you a ride if you’d like."

When she said that my mind traveled years back to primary school, when they would sit us all down on the floor and try to convince us not to do stupid things. Don’t light fires. Don’t play with guns. Don’t

I have to say that the prospect didn’t worry me greatly. I felt like she might need it in some weird animal way. Her respectable world of business wear and dinner parties and BMW’s and sons with high paying jobs probably didn’t have much of an outlet for selfish and carnal pursuits. If she thought I could help, I would try my best. The years had been kind to her, not just financially, and I felt like telling her.

But of course I didn’t. It may have been my own loneliness that I could smell. Perhaps she was completely happy with her existence, and only offered a ride to a stranger out of kindness, and not for the thrill of the unknown, the chance that something, anything, could happen. Maybe she didn’t sense the opportunity that we could both waste some of our lives doing something for no reason. Or that we could be honest despite our specific aversion to