A Familiar Face

For most of my 20's I lived in a quiet, leafy borough a few miles outside of the city. It wasn't a cool part of town. Other young people would always raise an eyebrow and ask "Why, though?" or give me a dry "I don't even know where that is" when I told them where my apartment was. But for me it was perfect. I spent enough time among the hubbub of downtown for school and work that most nights I was happy to bus back to my neighborhood and retire to my boring apartment. 

This was part of my transition from suburban kid to city dweller. As a teenager I began to think living in my home town the rest of my life would be bad for me. It was serene and safe, but it also felt too easy. Too designed to appease. I could feel myself becoming softer, literally and figuratively. 

My first year of college, I lived in student housing in the North Side of Pittsburgh, which at the time had a very sketchy reputation. The change of pace was exciting during the day, but as night approached I would regularly hear gunshots or be accosted by strangers for cash or drugs that I didn't have. It was too much change too soon. 

But I moved to the city because I wanted to alter my habits, and the borough split the difference nicely. A classmate and I found a place a few blocks off the main drag with affordable rent and we moved in. I was delighted to discover I could walk to almost anywhere I needed to go - a bus stop, a post office, the library or a park. I would often step out of my apartment building's door at 9:00 AM on a Saturday, run all my errands for the week, and be home before noon. It was ideal.

But I admit that I didn't fully embrace the walkable neighborhood lifestyle. I did have a car and I definitely overused it. I tried to show restraint at first, and convince myself it was only for certain situations: when I had to do a lot of shopping across town, or when I had to do a big load of laundry. But my self-imposed boundaries were regularly pushed and I often found myself driving around just out of boredom, hitting the big box stores and frequenting fast food restaurants. You can take the boy out of the suburbs, but etc, etc. 

Eventually I started to notice the expenses piling up and I began playing a number of thriftiness games with myself, trying to get my budget wrangled before it did real damage. With gratitude I recognize I have never truly been in poverty, but challenging myself in this way built up some empathy for folks who have to operate this way of necessity. 

One challenge involved a decidedly low-end grocery store at the end of the borough's main street. I had to walk there with a ten dollar bill, and get out with enough food to last me through the weekend. A typical bounty would be dry pasta, a bag of spinach and whatever protein was on sale that week. Sometimes I'd get milk for cereal. In addition to fitting into a tight budget, everything also had to fit inside my backpack so I could walk home without carrying an extra load. 

On one such trip I turned the corner of one of this small grocer's narrow aisles and barely avoided a collision with a middle-aged woman pushing a full shopping cart. 

"Oh, hi!" She greeted me cheerfully as I made space for her to get by. "How are you?"

"Oh good, how are you?" I returned, though I was momentarily taken aback. I knew this woman from somewhere. She had a broad, friendly face and a sing-song voice that rang a bell. She knew me, too. But she wasn't a coworker, and she was too old to have been a classmate. We politely parted as I tried to remember who else I recognized in my neighborhood.

Well, lots of people, I thought. The postal workers, the librarian - No, no - someone who I would frequently see walking a dog, or a pushing a stroller? No, not that either. I felt terrible. We were clearly on friendly terms, but why?

With some horror it hit me. How mortifying. I knew exactly who she was. This perfectly lovely woman- this polite, affable neighbor represented the worst of all my lazy impulses. She was the one who operated the drive-through window at the local Wendy's. Her familiar greeting spoke volumes about how frequently I was eating there. 

I stood next to the granola bars for a few moments while I closed my eyes and felt the shame roll over me. I seemed like I still had some work to do. I finished my budget shopping with less than forty cents to spare, and walked home with a little more vigor than usual.