i missed my stop on the train today. i was on my way home from work on the tuesday after a three day weekend and the day before i leave for vacation, also known as a Busy Day. i was texting two friends separately about the same conversation i had with a third friend, a conversation that just so happened to be about one of the friends being texted. there was a lot on my mind and nothing on my mind.
i looked up as the doors were closing, expecting to see the stop before mine, and instead i saw the roof of the little hut where people stand to wait for the train, clearly announcing we were at brookline village. immediately, i saw a version of me jump up, scream "this is my stop!" and run toward the door. i'd seen any number of people do the same exact thing.
two nights ago, i was at getting on the train at boylston. the doors shut and all of a sudden a woman was banging on the doors yelling, "my daughter! open the doors! my daughter!" in her haste, she turned her head and was yelling toward the back of the train, not the front. other passengers yelled, too, and the doors open. she got off the train and scolded her four year old, who had gotten of the train without her permission.
there were two possible options for me if i jumped up and ran to the door. i could make it, sneak off the train, and be home in three minutes. i could also miss my chance and have to ride for two minutes to the next stop with people who had seen me act like a complete crazy person. i stayed put.
i got off the train at the next stop. i'd seen it from afar any number of times when my friends were giving me rides home, but i'd never walked to or from it before. the light drizzle that had started on my walk from the office to the train was beginning to pick up. i looked across the tracks where i could wait for another train to come and take me back the one stop, and looked up the hill in the direction i was pretty sure was home. might as well give it a try, i though, and started up the hill.
it turned out to be very easy to get home. i walked up the hill, took a left, walked half a block, took a right, and was at the end of my street i usually ignore. instead of passing apartment buildings and city shops, i passed three story houses as wide as they were tall. Many were duplexes, some had porches that wrapped around the side, one had a bench in front with a wicker back, lit up with christmas lights.
in one house, light flowed from a window in a back room. i looked in on a family sitting down to eat dinner together. i wondered how long they had lived there, if there were children who grew up in this house who still came home to it during the holidays, what it would have been like if i grew up there. i wondered if they knew that people walked by their house, looking in on them, dreaming about all the things that could possibly be.
it took me five minutes to walk that way instead of three.
