What My Train Commute Says About Me?

The relationship with the train commute… If you lived in nyc before COVID, you have been commuting to work. First, I was commuting to my first job at a substance abuse outpatient clinic in the East Village in my late 20s. I took the Q train to Union Square and transferred to the L train to 14th St, got off on First Avenue, then walked to Tompkins Square Park and Ave B. That was the place where my clinic was located. I did different things while commuting, since my commute was almost 1.5 hours one way and 3 hours round trip. I read, slept, watched passengers, watched downloaded movies, and counted stops on the Q train, getting frustrated with how slowly it went. The real luck would be to meet a friend; the time would go by very fast. Meeting the friend on the commute was possible, as everyone worked from home back then.

I remember my relationship with commitment gradually shifting into not liking it and dragging myself through it, feeling exhausted. Fast forward to different milestones of my career, 

After a long break, I resumed my commute on Mondays last year. The interesting part I noticed after working from home since COVID, which is almost 6 years, is that I started liking the commute. I like the morning commute on Mondays because I feel part of the train, people who are sitting on the train, feeling together going to work and feeling together going home. Being part of the train, the train car, the morning routine, and the after-work routine feels very meaningful to me. There is also something precious about working from home, like getting out of the apartment in the morning.

I remember not even dreaming of working from home while I was working in the East Village early in my career, and I wasn’t even allowed to do paperwork at home. And the irony is, recently I started craving more commute, more getting out of the house, more dressed up, more rhythm, more contact.

There is also something nostalgic about my train commute; it reminds me of my late twenties, building my career, being a first-time mom, juggling working in nyc non-profit (if you know you know) and being a “Russian” mom-picking up my daughter from the Russian daycare and taking her to evening ballet class. Now I am in my 40s, and I feel different about my career. I have established a private practice, I am a published author, I run marathons, I run a Gestalt book club, my kids are grown up, and yet it’s almost a part of me that wants to go back to this 20’s survival mode: career, parenting, family, fast-paced life, where I was much younger, and there was more rhythm. There is some sadness that kids are not so young anymore; I am not in my 20’s, my parents are older…

 And yet there is appreciation of my 40’s, my confidence, achievements, and excitement for more creative projects.