It's all about the little things in life.
This whole collection of writing--all of the auto-spawned introspection and observation--came from my commute. My long, trying commute. The combined hours behind a steering wheel, which have added up to weeks now, I'm sure, gave me ample time to think. But lately, the thoughts have gone...stale. Where I used to watch the world creep past my windows and try to pick out something--anything of interest--to stave off the thick atmosphere of boredom, I slowly became even more jaded. I simply didn't care anymore.
I'd slump into the front seat of my car every morning and evening and I'd feel--nothing. Nothing is a dangerous feeling. If you're happy and looking forward to something, things are good no matter what. If you're dissatisfied, you at least have the motive to make a change. But feeling nothing--that hollow emptiness of complete indifference--leads you into limbo.
This is where I was for months, and why this place has been blank. The sprawling estates that I once looked at with wonder, as if I owned a small piece of them by gazing so often, became like cardboard huts. Their once-beautiful exteriors turned ashy and grey. Their manicured lawns--lush welcome mats for the dens of aristocracy--rolled back up as split and dried tongues into dust-spewing mouths. On the occassions when I'd be forced to drive the same route when I wasn't going to or from work with other people in the car, their remarks--as mine once were--about how wonderful those places looked provoked nothing but annoyance in me. I'd say to myself, "That house is a piece of shit and there's forty more of them, filled with shit-heads." If one day a mansion was miraculously floating above its foundation, I'd give it no more than a passing glace, and maybe the finger.
I was losing myself, and it was beginning to show.
What happened next, for me, was a great moment of providence, but to everyone else it was really just common sense. You see, I live about half a mile away from a train station, but never bothered to check and see if that particular line hooked into the one leading down into Grand Central. I was a man. A man with a car. The train represented a departure from that now wholly-retarded view.
But eventually, other factors led me to contemplate the cattle cars--namely money. Sure, I was a man with a car, but my car was like a gold-digging whore who lusted after expensive dino juice. Even though it gets decent gas mileage, I was still dropping seventy bucks a week to make the trip. When I saw that not only would the train get me to work without altering my schedule, but it would also only cost thirty-three dollars, my wallet kicked me in the right ass cheek and I bought my first ticket. In retrospect, it's the best thirty dollars I've spent since I bought a bullhorn off of eBay.
That first morning, as absolutely ridiculous as it sounds, I was nervous (or anxious--one of the two). I walked to the train station and stood there with the others who were waiting for its arrival. When I heard the horn blow and saw it round the corner, my heart actually started beating faster. I've ridden on these trains countless times when going into the city, but for some stupid reason, taking the train to work felt like when I stepped out of my mother's hug and got on the bus my very first day of school.
As the train pulled away, there was this sense of total relaxation. Someone else was doing the driving. Someone else was doing the waiting, the stressing. I was just along for the ride. As trivial as it may seem, I was exceptionally and indescribably pleased with this. It was a totally new sensation.
I read from multiple news sources and online magazines on my phone, completely oblivious to the world. At one point, though, I looked up and out of the window and saw the traffic on I-95 South--not a car was moving for about a mile. It was at that point that I realized I'd only drive to work again if it was absolutely necessary.
As I made my way from the train station to my office, I strolled like Andy Dufresne as he dumped small bits of his wall down his pant leg out of his pocket in the yard. I had broken out of that solitary cell of nothingness, crawled through a mile of shit, and when I emerged from the tunnel, I was in a train.
