It was a muggy Saturday night in August. I stepped into the last train car on my way to Times Square, muttering a silent thanks to whoever installed air conditioning on the 1 line. Cold waves washed over me.
Bliss.
And no one to share it with, except for a homeless man fast asleep on the orange and yellow seats. Bell pepper colors, was the first thought in my head. Then the train started moving, and I started to tear up. I’ve had it rough on the 1 line. This was where I wrote my first book, hot laptop burning a hole in my pants on my commute from my full time job to my part-time masters. In those cramped rush-hour trips, I sniffed back tears while banging out the sad parts, hoping that no one was paying attention.
Today, my commute started on Franklin Street. As the train cars rattled over the subterranean tracks, I realized that the street names were like the streets we grew up on. My childhood began on a Washington Street in Massachusetts. George Washington, meet Ben Franklin. We stopped at Canal, then Houston, then Christopher. And like my childhood, there was hardly anyone in the train.
It reminded me of moving homes as a kid. You arrive at your new neighborhood, linger for a bit, watching the strangers sitting on the benches outside. You wonder where they’re going before the train of life picks up speed and takes you away. There are a lot of stops named after streets. That feels appropriate, because time stretches when you’re young. You’ve got all the time in the world.
Then you hit 14th street Union Square, and more people enter the car. Teenagers, mostly. Some of them carrying skateboards and wearing hoop earrings. It gets nosier. I put in my five-dollar amazon headphones and listen to music that I downloaded on iTunes and definitely did not pirate.
Before you know it, 18th street and 23rd street come and go. They’re like ages. College years are some of the most formative of your life, and you’re swept up in this whirlwind of change as some people exit the car and others come along for the ride. You want to savor it, but the pace has not changed, and just as surely as you moved away from Christopher street, the train pulls away from the station, speeding up until the 23rd street sign is just a blur.
At this point, my brain is on fire, thinking about how freakishly accurate these breakpoints are. For the most part, kids enter high school around 14, college around 18, and graduate around 23. This whole ride is a model for life.
How often do we really stop and think about where we came from, and where we’re going? Sometimes, it’s just these watershed moments.
These are the beats of our existence, the forge where we’re melted down into the societal molds set out for us and come out different and new and not necessarily better. But good enough. Yet, despite the experience of so many generations before us, we never quite appreciate the speed at which the train leaves each station until it slows down again.
28th street. That’s the next stop. Five years after college, when reunions are happening, and more adults than kids are occupying the seats across and beside me. The years where you understand enough to look down on that silly child you once were, but not enough to be comfortable with the looming responsibilities of being a parent. This is the stop where the train takes an extra long break and you’re not sure why, but you take the opportunity to marvel at how there are people younger than you who are ten times as wealthy. You wonder what you’re doing with your life, whether you’re wasting your time.
Maybe you had those musings at twenty-three, but the weight of it only grows over time. But then the train accelerates again, and time is unforgiving as it is inevitable.
Next is 34th street, a huge hub where most people get off and an equal number get on. Penn Station, the connection point for other destinations in our lives. This is where the metaphor breaks down just a bit. In your twenties, your friends might’ve been traveling. In your thirties, especially by thirty-four, most people are settling down. The people next to you are the same people who have been riding with you for many, many stops.
Other facets remain true. Most people keep their heads down, rushing ahead without looking up at the countless lives passing them by.
Parents are pushing babies in carriages onto the 1 line, and they’re cooing. The babies, not the parents. I get up and offer my spot to a lady wearing a dark-blue cloth mask, and she takes it with a grateful smile. Well, I can’t tell if she’s actually smiling, but the corners of her eyes crinkle, and that’s enough for me.
I spent a good amount of time ruminating here, but the truth is that the moments passed by so fast. Before I knew it, I was already at 42nd street Times Square, and time was up. It was time to go, just like that. So soon? This stop represents our mid-life crisis, and I couldn’t help but ask myself some tough questions.
When will I get off the train?
When will I take the time to really sit down and smell the roses?
It keeps going, you know. 50th street, 59th Street, 66th Street, faster and faster. Kids sprout wings and leave the coop, and you lose too many loved ones along the way. The seventies and eighties pass by in a blur, and by then there’s far fewer people on the train.
They get off.
Are you following me here? It’s a constant, daily message to all those who ride this subway, and we’ve grown numb to it. Our journeys have a destination, and the train doesn’t stop in one place for long.
If I only had one day in the city, I’d like to think that I’d get off at every stop and visit every landmark before getting back on. I wouldn’t even mind the extra fare. But the truth is, in my short time on this earth, I’ve found myself to be the kind of person who just watches the stops fly past. Only after they’re gone do I realize that my destination is fast approaching and it’s almost time to get off.
Meanwhile, the train rumbles on and on, screeching to a halt occasionally to remind me of where I am in life, only to accelerate ever quicker into the dark tunnels.
How frightening.
Yet, even in these heavy musings, I find solace in a few things.
We’re all on this trip together.
We’ll all reach the same destination.
In the end, no one will judge you for the path you took. No one will judge you for what stop you got on or got off. That’s for you to decide, and for you to weigh, and for you to be content with.
I don’t know you, and I don’t know where you’re going. Like the stranger you lock eyes with on the subway, the one you wonder if you’d be friends with in a different life, I can only smile and give an awkward little wave and wish you well on your journey.
Just remember one thing.
