Meeting Myself in Fifteen Years

I started taking classes at the library to curb boredom. I don't like being idle so I figured the best way to make use of my time is to take advantage of a free service. Besides, one can only take so much TV in a day.

So one day while I was surfing the library website, I found a list of classes offered at different branches. It had everything from Computer Classes to Arts & Crafts to Meet the Author guest visits. I signed up.

Yesterday was three levels of MS Excel. My love affair with spreadsheets and all things mathematical has been in need of serious rekindling, or beginning, to be more exact. I arrived early and sat outside the classroom and met a nice middle-aged woman who had also signed up for all three levels. She had an accent that sounded like she was from the Caribbean.

During the break, we walked out together, intending to eat at separate places, but she changed her mind and went with me to Burger King. While waiting in line to order, she got a phone call that sounded like it was from a loved one. I was right. It was her daughter.

She went on to say that they're very close, that she's a single parent, that her daughter just married and moved to the West Coast, that they moved to Orlando twenty-three years ago from the Caribbean, and that she is now adjusting to life without her daughter.

We spent the rest of lunch making small talk about our other countries, our daughters, and the things we're looking forward to in 2008.

I couldn't help but think that some day, I too will be in an empty house and on the phone with Kyera who is off living her own life somewhere.

I hope there will be more classes at the library by then. And maybe a young single mom who's trying to find her way around a new life that I can share lunch with.