Me and Odd Encounters with Buses ~ John

I’ve had a couple odd encounters with buses. I like to drop into conversations about driver training experiences that I hit a bus while taking my test. Sorry, it’s not as intriguing as it sounds.

About five years ago, I was on the receiving end of a bus – albeit a figurative one. But it arguably inflicted the same impact as if I came face to face with a bus’ actual bumper.

It was as if I stepped off the proverbial curb one day exactly as I always do when I got taken out. It was nothing reckless; it sure wasn’t expected; and in retrospect, I didn’t see it coming. At all. I still can’t fully explain it.

Pushing the bus analogy a bit further, it was as if each seat on the bus was occupied by the stuff I’d encountered since I was very young.
It wasn’t a bus full of the gentrified class on their way for bridge and tea; they were more like those smelly, swearing, double-seat occupying bullies of the worse kind, with legs spread wide and really bad hair.

I’ve not been one to dwell on the past. Now approaching 60, I can’t think of any real regrets. But like everyone, I’ve sometimes had to put my head down and plow through some tough things. It’s been instinctive, probably expected, generally accepted, and sometimes applauded. But it wasn’t particularly healthy.

Rather than driving through a hurt or wound, I would, unwittingly, simply put each one on this bus I didn’t even know about. Also not known to me was that it kept following me around. Usually at a safe distance with the passengers admonishing the driver not to let me out their sight.

These passengers? They included the deep thirst for love and attention from my earliest days. The loneliness that results from moving cities several times and leaving behind friends, family and the familiar. The sense of abandonment after being dropped off at boarding school at 13 (a place that became home and a place I loved, but which also came with a huge emotional downside I’ve only recently recognized).

The last passenger to get on the bus before being run over was not particularly big, burly, or barbaric (enough with the “b” words). It was just that one that filled the bus to overflowing, causing the vehicle to veer off course and directly into my path. Bam! And rather than helping me, the passengers got off and gave me the boot. Thanks!

Looking back, I’m not angry, but I’m still recovering. I’m not incapacitated, but I’m not the same…and in some good ways. It’s been a poignant lesson – one that has helped me become a great deal more compassionate towards those who have suffered something similar, which I believe is most of us.