Overheard on the train

When I need to go into the city for work and other city related things I generally take the train in to avoid traffic. It is WAY cooler than the bus and is a guaranteed 30 minute journey.

With the exception of occasional crying, screaming children, a hippy playing the guitar, high school students and girls fighting with their significant others on the phone and crying, train people are very quiet and peaceful. They read on their various devices, listen to their music, watch their TV shows and look out the window as they slowly fall asleep with the soothing rocking of the train on its tracks. If people are talking it's usually in hushed tones about business ventures or their Thanksgiving dinner. 

Today was different.

I was unintentionally eavesdropping on the the most revealing, depressing conversation I have ever been privy to in my entire life. 

Two ladies speaking a mixture of French and English seemed to be having a competition for who had the most depressing story to tell. 

Lady-sat-diagonally-from-me seemed to have won. See her mother was very sick when Lady-sat-diagonally-from-me was a child and had a life threatening illness for as long as Lady-sat-diagonally-from-me can remember. Her mother died when Lady-sat-diagonally-from-me was 11 years old of something OTHER than the life threatening illness though. It was something that put her in a coma that inevitably killed her. Her brother was 13 and very distressed by this. Also 13 is a distressing, life-altering age in general so Lady-sat-diagonally-from-me says her brother was basically a little shit after her mother's death. Her father didn't take it well either. See he was never really home. He worked a lot and so she didn't really know him. It was rough. And then her father died when she was 17. How, you ask? He killed himself because it was all too much for him. He had the whole thing planned out. Left his kids all the money and killed himself. Apparently her brother was a little shit then too. So basically she was on her own.

Lady-sat-diagonally-from-me's husband also has a depressing job. Also her daughter is married to a guy who doesn't want to have kids but her daughter wants to have kids and is sad but has basically given up on trying to have kids for this guy.

In other news, Lady-sitting-next-to-me's friend's daughter was pregnant. She was due this month but today she was taken in to give birth to a stillborn child. The sadness doesn't end there. Apparently the father of the child died in August of diabetes related causes and so, though that was really sad, everyone was really happy this baby was coming along. It's just ridiculously sad and depressing.

Also a man that both these women work with is having an affair that exploded in his face. It was a weird situation in which his wife broke with him because she found out he was having an affair but then his mistress broke up with him too because she ended up being married or having another boyfriend or something. So his life is in the shits too. It's really ridiculous and depressing. 

Yeah. I'm not making this up.