The Postman

One man walked in off the horizon
and hope came with him.

Looking out the window of my office at work, I can see the main lobby entrance of my building. Pretty much every weekday at about 4:00 p.m., the postal truck pulls up and the same guy that I have seen for several years gets out to complete his afternoon pick up. As he makes his way to the main entrance, he walks right past my window. My guess is that by now he could find his way to the front desk without a stumble on even a moonless night.

However, the other day for some reason, he entered into the building by the door at the end of my hallway. A hallway that runs parallel to his normal route. He walked back and forth past my door a couple of times kind of muttering to himself. Finally, he knocked on my door and asked if I could show him the way to the lobby. I could tell from his tone and his mien that he was a bit disoriented and more than a little bit frustrated that he couldn't find his way.

If he had just walked the hundred feet to the end of my hallway, he would have been standing at the doors that he normally enters by. I thought of how easy it is for all of us to be only slightly perturbed from our natural state or routine and we cannot find our way back to our usual equilibrium. How easily we become lost. How fragile our make up and our mindset is in this regard.