the bus ride home

every thursday i ride the bus home from school
same bus
same time
and same bus driver

as i was listening to ingrid's new album, human again, (which by the way, is AMAZING!) i was able to observe people in a different light. there's just something about drowning out all the noise around me and replacing it with a song of my choice that makes me look at the world and the people in it differently.

suddenly, the girl sitting 2 seats away from me was no longer just another girl on the bus. as i inconspicuously observed her happily conversing with another girl across from us (who appeared to be new at the whole "bus" thing) how i viewed her changed. she became friendly, knowledgeable, even inspiring! and i felt really good sitting next to her.

my bus driver was no longer just a bus driver, but a friendly, heart-warming human who had feelings too. i watched him point outside the window or nod his head and smile when people talked to him. he put his hand high in the air and waved when another bus passed by. he pretended to shut the door on someone and laughed as he let them back in. he's always been more than a bus driver, but for the first time i SAW it.

after i got off the bus and started walking the 3 blocks ahead of me, the song: blood brothers was playing in my headphones. this got me thinking. too often, i find myself viewing the world from a "me" standpoint. the one where anyone different than myself starts to bug me and it's all their fault. but when i take a moment, and view people from a "them" standpoint and see where they're coming from, we're incredibly similar! what they want, i want too. we all crave food, water, shelter, and love. people will always do things we don't understand. but if we just remember that we all have that in common, then maybe we wouldn't rate people. and maybe just maybe they might not even bug us. (that's the one that's really hard for me)

 as ingrid so beautifully said, "we're all the same, under a different name."