realization that just blew my mind: there are so many good people out there... honest, good-hearted, unaffected, multifaceted, interesting people that i will never meet. maybe not so virtuous as that. all of them uniquely human. all of them fascinating beyond belief. there are some i'll pass by on the street with nothing but a glance, to never know. and there are some that i will cross paths with, that i may have already met, already overlooked. what if the girl sipping her tea at the corner table in the window dreams of mountains and lakes, fields and trails, dunes and oceans? maybe she has a habit of climbing up grassy hills so she can roll down them. what about the cashier at powell's who rung up that stack of used books... does he take midnight walks? maybe his life goal is to learn to surf. and the dude on the max who gave me a piece of his art... does he keep verses torn out of library books under his pillow? will he ever make it to san francisco?

what about the people in croatia, in argentina, india, haiti, australia, kenya... what if i found my best friend in thailand or iceland? what stories do they have to tell? how many of them could i let myself fall in love with? which one will teach me the most about life? how many people will i laugh with? who else sleeps in a hammock? does any one of them collect kites?

it's just chance, you know, that you'll marry that girl, that you ended up with that guy, that you met that person that day, that you took that class that changed your life. how can it not be, when we move in such small circles? we convince ourselves of this idea that there's only one person for us, one soulmate, or one path we're meant to take, and that everything that happens happens for a reason. but there's no way. there's no way there's anything but infinite possibilities there is so much beauty in this world that it's easy to overlook it to sit and think of unknown friends that could maybe possibly be dear to me almost breaks my heart.