Am I the only constant?

Every once in a while, I have to stop and think about my life: daily, long term, short term. After a while I start to notice little things. Nothing disturbing or upsetting, but I occasionally find myself turning my head and going, "Huh?" It's almost like "am I the only one who notices these things?" or "why doesn't anyone else seem to see what I see?" In other words, I have to ask myself, "Am I the only constant?"

Maybe I'm a monotonous person or just plain old boring, but I seem to do the same things pretty regularly. I get up at 6:15AM, take a shower, get dressed, out the door by 7:10AM, get to the bus by 7:45AM, get into the city by 9:00AM, work, lunch, work, home by 7:30PM, chill with my husband and family, go to bed by 12:00AM only to start the process over. The funny thing is that no matter how patterned my life seems to be, I almost never run into the same people. Sure, I see a few people at the bus stop depending on what bus I take, but it's still not enough to make me feel like I part of the big picture.

Once I get into the city, I rarely ever see the same people, except for those I work with and the folks at the coffee shop on 9th Avenue. It's almost like I'm the only one with some sort of set schedule and the whole world is revolving and evolving around me, but not including me. Maybe it's just because New York City has so many people, but I think it's bigger than that. I mean, you'd think eventually I'd see the same people somewhere at the same time as the day before or even earlier in the week. But, no. I'm still the only one going through this world looking for some sort of constant other than myself.

I wonder if other people feel this way? Hell, maybe I am the only who feels this way. But you have to wonder. We have so many people in the tri-state area that it's a great possibility that we are all running on our own little schedules, but we all just miss each other by seconds, therefore throwing off the idea of being a constant in anyone else's life but our own. Does that make any sense? Gee, maybe I'm the only one who understands this. At least I think I do. If you think about it, though, I have my schedule, you have yours, he has his, and we all make it through our day in our own way, no matter how patterned it is. But life would be pretty boring if you ran into the same people everyday at the same time, over and over...and over.

I go to church a few times during the week, and after a while I noticed that I wasn't the only one who made regular visits (actually, that made me feel good as a Catholic). But as time went on, I started to realize that no one seemed to notice that I was there on a regular basis. After about 4 months, people started to notice that I was there about 3 or 4 days a week, and they started saying hello or shaking my hand during the offering of peace. It's almost like I was in some sort of bubble and it finally burst. I mean, you can't exactly scream out "Hey! I'm here!" in church.

I recently started walking during my lunch hour (to take yet another stab at losing weight), and I walked all the way across town to 2nd Avenue by way of 37th Street. I finally found out where Murray Hill is. I found new little shops, restaurants and bars, more new faces and places of interest. In fact, I found a new church to stop in when I'm in the neighborhood. It was good to get out of my regular old routine and try something new.

So after thinking about this and writing it and reading it, I've come to realize that yes, I am the only constant--in my own life. I have my boring little schedule, and I may see you once, twice, maybe three times if I'm lucky. I may encounter the same truck on the highway two days a week or catch the same bus on the way home, but too much of the same thing does become boring. I don't mean that in a bad way, but everyone needs a little change.