One rainy day I ride my office building’s elevator up to the 9th floor with another woman who is headed to the 12th floor. We don’t speak as we’re both out of breath from rushing to make the light to cross the street. Later that day, we ride down the elevator together again. “Do you take the train?” she asks.

“Yes, I do,” I reply.

We walk together to the train station just a half a block from our building, and she tells me she has been working for the corporate headquarters of a skilled nursing agency for eleven years. Her commute takes her two hours each way, but “it’s a really good job with benefits,” she says, “and those jobs are hard to find.” I concur, and we sit together on the purple line train. As the train stops at various stations on its way to Union Station, she greets two or three women at each stop as they board the train. “After you ride the train a while,” she says to me, “you make friends.”

Though I haven’t ridden the metro train for eleven years like her, I also have made a few friends on the train. I know some of their names, but some I don’t. Instead, I know their stories – what their job is, how long they’ve worked there, and where they live. Even if we don’t speak, I see familiar faces, and it brings me comfort and a sense of safety. I might not know you, but I’ve ridden the train with you for four months and you seem pretty normal.

Whether you live in a big city or small town, it’s easy to feel isolated. A sense of self-protection keeps us from talking to one another, but when we take a chance, we discover how much we’re alike. There’s comfort in that connection, however brief, and we know we’re not alone.

Photo by ThePhotoQueue