Sometimes you get over things and sometimes you don’t. It’s a counsellor’s bread and butter, these things we don’t get over. And I will admit to having a few of them myself. You’d understand it if you were me. After all, my mother yelled at me for stepping on the combine and swather my brother made out of Tinker Toys. Well, maybe she yelled at me for hitting him over the head when he started to cry because I had stepped on his combine and swather made of tinker Toys which he shouldn’t have left in a place where I could step on it because it really hurts your bare feet to step on Tinker Toys, and it hurts ever worse when your mother cares more about your brother’s head than she does about your feet, even if he is five years younger than you. , And I can tell you for absolute sure that my sister is still bitter about the time when she got in trouble for punching my nose, and making it bleed all over my new white New Year’s blouse just because I went into her room without knocking at a time when she was standing there in her underwear. My mother said you don’t punch people who are eight years younger than you, which my sister considered to be a gross over-generalization, given the nature of the crime that led to the punch. She said if I hadn’t whined and cried like a baby instead of being mature about the punch and the blood and my blouse, and if I had simply taken my fair share of responsibility for what happened, the whole thing would have ended much sooner leaving smaller scars and less permanent damage to fill the wallets of greedy counsellors.
Given that I have this long experience of not getting over things, you can probably understand where I was coming from when yesterday, as I walked down the hill after getting off the bus, I started to wonder if I would ever get over the feeling I had. It was one of those feelings you don’t learn to describe, even if you’ve been having it day after day. It was a little like triumph. It was a little like victory. It was a little bit like the way Mark’s cat feels when he comes for a visit and manages a complete tour of the kitchen counter before somebody notices him and swats him back down to the floor. I knew the feeling would pass, as it does every day, and I just wanted to stop right there in the middle of the sidewalk to write it down. If only I’d had my laptop! And how can you really get it across anyway. You have to be there to feel it. You have to be right inside me. You probably wouldn’t pick it up from simply watching, or hearing about it, even hearing about it from me. But I’ll try to explain it.
Yesterday afternoon, at the end of the work day, when I was oh-so tired from delivering a workshop after not having slept well the previous night, I got off the bus at the right stop. That’s it, the whole story, well, almost the whole story. The bus stopped because I rang the bell, just pulled the cord when the time was right and rang the bell! And the driver stopped the bus at the stop and I got off and said “Good-bye!”
Well, maybe you’d understand it better if I told you what I didn’t do. I didn’t say to the driver, “Can you please tell me when we get to Alex Taylor Road?’ And I didn’t sit down with a sinking heart, realizing that he doesn’t know exactly where Alex Taylor Road is, even though his bus goes past it, because he is a part-time driver on this route for the very first time. And I didn’t wish we were back on the buses of the old days, before wheelchairs, when there were seats right near the driver, seats where he could see you. And I didn’t sit there through the whole trip, trying desperately to stay awake so that I would know approximately where we were, so I could stand up and push my way to the front and ask whether we were near Alex Taylor Road in case the driver had forgotten me in the course of dealing with people who didn’t have the right change, didn’t know what bus to take, and didn’t read the sign that says you aren’t supposed to stand there and talk hockey with the driver when the bus is in motion. Like I said before, I just pulled the bell at the right time and got off at the right stop, and it wasn’t the first time either.
It all started back in early August when I got my new Trekker. It’s a little talking GPs that sits on my shoulder and tells me where I am. It announces the streets before you get to them. It’s like—like being able to look at the street signs! It’s got a button on it that’s called “Where Am I?” When I first got it I pressed the where-am-I button all the time, even when I knew where I was. It was such a comfort just to hear that somebody agreed with me. It was just like looking up at the things around you, which people do all the time without thinking.
I could turn off the trekker after I get off the bus. It would save batteries, and I don’t really need it. But I always leave it running. Just as I get close to my house, this little machine pipes up and says, “Home nearby.” This isn’t information I absolutely need. I know this already, most of the time anyway. But I like to think the Trekker heard me wondering, “Are we there yet?”
If there was a shortage of friends in the world, and I was only allowed to have one friend, I don’t suppose I’d choose the Trekker. It’s only a machine after all, imperfect at times, like family helpers, like friends. But it does surprise me that a machine can feel like such a friend. It feels comforting. It feels like some computer geek I’ve never even met knew how it feels to be me when I’m tired on a crowded bus, and then took the time to make it feel better. It’s the kind of work counsellors usually do. Computer geeks and counsellors have things in common. That’s amazing! I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it.
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