Somebody.

Today,

I've heard eight ambulance sirens,

Passed by five beggars in four blocks while walking through the wealthiest area of the city,

Stood next to a woman in a bookshop who began to cry after receiving a phone call,

Sat alone while surrounded by people in a cafe,

Witnessed two young boys pull off a small time drug deal on the corner in my neighborhood,

Said hello to the man on my street who spends the day walking around with a giant snake around his neck,

Said nothing while making my way through ebb and flow of city slickers who walk with their gazes fixed on the empty space ahead or the luminescent screens in their palms,

Came home to the quiet,

Read,

And just before sleep I stumbled across this picture and quote on Humans of New York.

"I was hoping I'd be somebody by now."

The point?

In eight words this man has encapsulated life in the city.

D.C. is a place where people ask where you went to school before they ask for your name.

Politics are brought up as compatibility tests in bar chats.

There is big money and entire neighborhoods filled with those who have left jobs as lawyers, architects and teachers who now work as dishwashers and cooks to gain a new life.

It can be solitary and lonely and sometimes I settle into this until I realize that I am perpetually surrounded by thousands of somebodies that aren't all that different from myself.

We might not be where we want to just yet,

But for now we are here,

And in this place,

We are definitely,

somebody.

Photocredit: http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

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