When a string breaks

Relationships are all like strings. Woven tightly it bonds to our strength. The more strings we have the more taught the rope we weave. I've recently had some of that rope fray and break, I had tried to tie and mend it, but once broken it's never quite the way it was.

Relationships are tricky bit of business. I have yet to find one that doesn't bring something to my growth and understanding of myself and those around me. Weather it be in love or friend, it connects us and gives us something worth conversation and plenty of memories. Some are short affairs and others last a life time, but there is one indisputable fact, everyone needs these bonds and connections. I have been fortunate to experience the gambit with such relationships. I have been in love and engaged twice, I have been hurt and been the cause of hurt, friends have come and gone and yet through all of this I have come to be a better person for it.

I think of the bum I used to see downtown Iowa City. I would find myself getting sloppy on a Thursday through Friday night (Thursday was college night, Friday went without saying, and Saturday was just, well...Saturday) and this man with a sign would always be downtown in the pedmall. Many a night I recall bumping into him and starting up a hazy chat. He always had these signs he used to evoke a sediment of laughter. One sign read, "Credit Cards now accepted, exact change preferred" while another was "My penis too small for sex, please help" I instantly liked this guy. Although he most likely had a alcohol problem and was a permanent fixture of downtown Iowa City, he kept his humor about life and a smile on his face.

I talked to him one night and asked why he stuck around and where his family was. He simply answered that he lost his job long ago and his relationship with his daughter was lost. In the haze can't recall how or why this happend to him, but he was content (that is to say from which I could gather) with what he had in his city. Although I don't see him much anymore, as I have moved on and left Iowa City, I always remember him as a small part of my time at Iowa.

Although that one instance is rather insignificant it had an impact on me in one form or another. I didn't mean to get on a tangent about some random homeless guy, I was justing thinking how something as benign as a random homeless man plays a part of our experience. If I were a homeless man, this is what I should look like.

Who's the random person in your life that you may have forgotten about?