The miracle of human contact

It has been several months since the last blog post and in that time there has been a big change for yours truly.  I have switched jobs.  The new opportunity is a terrific one with unbelievable growth potential.  This new path finds me in a different city, with a completely different mode of  transportation, by car.  This greatly cuts down the people I encounter in my commute. 

In my former job I took the train, walked into the city and had many opportunities for social interaction before I even got to my desk.  The train buddies, the homeless people, my walking buddy, the clerks at the store and the building guards all served to give me a little human contact to make the day a bit brighter. 

I knew when I switched jobs that I'd miss all the friendships and contacts I've developed over the years but was fully sure that I would keep in contact with those who became "real" friendships.  While this is certainly true,I had not realized how much I would miss the inconsequential touch points I had through my day.  The engineer that I walked past each morning and shared a wave and a good morning, the train guys who I had 2 minutes of friendly conversation and then we all retreated to our own books, newspapers and videos, the homeless man on the bridge with the toothless grin full of optimism, the homeless guy yelling out "have a blessed day".  All of these people I interacted with, many without even knowing their names, but all giving me a little piece of happiness to get me through the day and be in awe of how great life is.

I've found that I've been a little depressed over the past weeks, a lot of that is due to a severe cold I'm fighting along with my psyche not liking change.  I cannot discount the fact that the lack of social pleasantries, with almost certain strangers, has also played a big part.  I only have one solution for this.  I must walk my new work neighborhood, start to lay down some patterns and habits and come to know the people.  I'm going to start every Wednesday by going to the same coffee shop....then I'll go once a week to the local store and chat people up there, hopefully if I take a walk around lunchtime most days I'll see people that are in the neighborhood.  It's going to be a process but I have found I am one who needs those small social relationships even if others aren't aware we are in them together!