i will be grateful for this day

Ok, this time even I gotta admit - life is good. Today I met two people, one a friend from high school and the other a friend from uni. The friend from uni was one of those people we really started talking just before we cleared, like in the fourth year, and she was doing well, like in every respect. Got a nice job, house, living on her own, even underwent this crazy personality change, hair grew longer, basically she seemed to be making it. It was early in the morning, so we went and had breakfast and talked about a lot of things, and it was refreshing, to see how people find my traumatizing tale about that day I rolled with our car and almost killed my mother funny, or how sometimes it's not our imagination - the grass really is greener on the other side (she works at one of the other Big Four audit firms so she was telling me all about theirs and it did sound enticing; at the very least she had me at 25% salary increment...), or looking at the world through the eyes of a converted introvert. Twas nice. It's also interesting the way the really shy people, the ones who literally don't look up when being spoken to, can't really come up and say they're shy, and then here's Robbie Williams on Trace saying how "...see the great thing about me is that I'm a really shy guy. You can't see it, I can't even see it myself sometimes, but I am..." WTH!!! DUDE, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ON THE NEWS, YOU'RE A ROCKSTAR!!!!

Anyway then just after we'd split and I was walking away thinking about how much better life could have gotten for me, I run into the ex-high school friend. Well, not really friend, someone it just so happens we went to the same school with (it was really large, like a thousand students, so one couldn't be friends with everyone, plus really, I wasn't tripping over myself making them those days...). At any rate, we started to talk, and I could tell, even just from his look, that he led a troubled life. It turned out he was a street beggar, but because of his age, (he's my age), people aren't given to experiencing spasms of kindness and writing him large cheques when they see him walk towards them. Not nearly as much as they get the urge to scream "THIEF!!! THIEF!!!" So it's really hard for him. What I thought was merely just a rough day a guy was turning out to be everyday for him.

Actually I should tell his story the way it is - he's not a street beggar, he's a street con. He's mastered the art of telling theses heart-rending stories about how he was promised a settlement by his former sponsors (the people who paid his fees for him - Starch is that kind of school), and how it came as an international wire transfer which is still in the system at the bank and so for the two weeks it'll take to clear the guy he's been living with moved and went to live in Coast for a while so left him without anything to do and so all he needs is some transport to go home - a thousand bob! ati coz he lives someplace deep in Rift Valley. I think I trust in the inherent goodness of people too much, coz I'd bought that story hook line and sinker. So I was talking to some other guys we went to school with as well, and wadya know, they know about him! He's scammed them too! I didn't give him anything coz mercifully I didn't have anything at the time, but I was actually feeling guilty for being unable to help out. It's hard to imagine that at some point not too long ago, the world had opened up before us, both me and him, and the sky was really the limit, (Starehe is the kind of school that does that for you - it opens doors), and now the contrast between us couldn't be bigger. I wonder what happens to certain people's dreams. I've said before that I see no rhyme and reason to life, and that no one knows why some things work out and others don't. Well today I've gained another new perspective: all this time I keep thinking how it could be better for me, and being unsatisfied with what I have, well, I just got a taste of how much worse it could have gotten. If for no other reason, just for that visual, I will be grateful for this day.

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