Christine

I had an interesting conversation while stuck in an interminable line at the post office today. It started, as these things usually do, with an exchange of comments and some eye-rolling at the slowness of the line, between me and the girl standing behind me. Two of the post office clerks were apparently on break, leaving just one on duty to deal with a line that stretched out the door. Then she made an interesting remark about how a private company wouldn't tolerate such delays in service, and how this represented a failure of the free-enterprise system. I like it when people talk smart like that. Makes me feel like I'm back in college.

She was younger than me, and a lot more together-looking, with great cheekbones and the kind of straight, sleek, mousy-brown hair that doesn't need anything done to it. Though her English was perfect, she spoke with a faint accent. It turned out she was born in Macedonia. She came to the U.S. at the age of sixteen, and put herself through college all on her own. I said that it must be hard to be so far from your family. I said it genuinely, but also somewhat automatically. To my surprise, she reacted as though people had rarely said it to her. She got a far-off look in her eyes and said, "It is really hard. You never stop missing your family. You learn to survive with that ache, but it never goes away."

We compared jobs. She was an investment banker, one year out of college, working herself to the bone with twelve hour days. I said I liked my non-profit work, but was finding it very non-profit, and sometimes felt that I should have taken a more lucrative career path. She asked what I was earning (with apologies, but I didn't mind telling her - like all confessions, it was easy to tell a stranger). Her salary was quite a bit higher. "Must be nice to be able to leave work at five," she said wistfully. "Must be nice to earn what you do," I said, and we grinned at each other. Maybe someday we'll each get the chance to experience the other side.

After a pause, she said the thing that stuck with me. She said, "I didn't realize until this conversation how lonely I really am."

I wanted to reach over and hug her. She seemed a hair's breadth from crying. Instead I said something like, "It's hard, isn't it." It's even hard for me, and I grew up here, and I get off work at five. She said, "I just have no time for my own life, and I have no one here."

Then she straightened and said, "I hate it when I get like this, feeling sorry for myself." "Everyone is allowed to feel that way sometimes," I said. She nodded and said, "Anyway, I'm leaving in a couple months. I'm moving to California to live with my boyfriend."

We talked some more, about life plans and families and careers. We were just getting into that endlessly rich topic of how to balance childbearing with a career, when we finally reached the front of the line.

In parting, we wished each other well and said we were glad to have met. I hope things work out for her and the boyfriend. Maybe she can take him home to meet her parents in Macedonia sometime.