“Life on commute”

Family, friends, the Internet, and commute have been such an integral part of modern day living. Unnecessarily in that order of significance. There was a news article I read at the end of four weeks, past. It stated intimately as to how commute has been a struggle and an alternate part of our day. People travel hours on end to meet educational institutions and workspaces. This article stated it’s a negative brand on the same subject detailing depression, loneliness and an overall reduction in wellbeing. The reason simply being that we are forced to live with ourselves during our commute. Although the majority prefer film or television on their smartphones. Music playing well beyond the lining of their headphones. Or the occasional readers. The silent escapist dreamers. The songstresses who dance their way through the motions of a train’s journey.

I have been on a commute as long as I can remember may it be school. Taking the public bus crowded during the early hours or taking the crowded train to University. Always having a Novel of distinguishing sizes, may it be ones that fit in my pocket or the ones that need a bag. But once we share our lives with the ones we commute with, there is no verbal conversation just a sense of knowing, respect and sometimes mutual admiration for the clothes that may be bright, or unique eyeglasses we shade ourselves with, physicality’s of the strong and the immensely tall. People of various ethnicity. The youthful and innocent actions of the young with the world around them, playing about in worlds imagined.

Everyone carries life with them, and they are sometimes forced to confront it among strangers. It is a very intimate ordeal. Sharing a life with a stranger for stop or two before they head on past the windows and that may be the last you will ever see of them. I was once comfortably seated in the train and a woman walks in presumably with a baby in her belly. My senses would dictate to give her my seat so that they may sit comfortably but the occasional misread is surely possible. She may not be with child after all and maybe I would offend her having assumed so and giving her my seat. A healthy individual who wishes to get around the next stop. But then again nobody would refuse a seat. She was with no baby and she offered no smile in return for my respectful gesture. She was Asian and seemed like she had much to order herself within her mind. Staying far from the judgment I speak. She was beyond beautiful, but her eyes strained and sawn. She looked only to those design perfect floors with teal blue and random dots. She spoke to every one of the dots with her eyes. I could only imagine the conversation they had. Each dot speaking to her maybe about her flaws, her regrets and so much more. A man steps onto those dots. Her gaze shifts on quickly to her phone, having to only scroll through her messages having received no new ones. I assume. She keeps it to aside in her purse and looks at the sunny windows and altering any gaze or line of sight offered by complete strangers in and about the train. She seems to be anxious and more anxious as more people walked in. Judgment and scrutiny of flaws have always been a subject to be more self-conscious but what would be worse is to see yourself through the eyes of a stranger. She might have seen herself just as she sees herself but through the very thin veil of preconception, she might have of a stranger dressed to his/ her best. She quickly gets up and moves to the compartment where there are a lesser group of people and exits the train to her stop.

Having to face our challenges is a task of true courage and sometimes being commute forces us to see ourselves through our weakness and what we think that we could better so that we can simply be among a lot who would accept us and where we think we would belong better in.

I think this to myself as I wait for my stop. I also think I have read a lot of Novels and watched a lot of films.