Memories of a Different Life, but Still My Life

Weird memory flash this morning. I have no idea what triggered it, but here it is:

It was in the late(ish) 1990s. I had just  moved to Boston, since I was riding on the T at rush hour.

The train car was packed, and as the green line train hurtled through the tunnels, I got wedged at the front of the first car. In an act of mercy, the driver opened his door to give us a little room. From where I was standing, I could see straight out the front window of the train.  I watched as we carreened through the subway tunnels, lit by the lights of the train.

I watched in facsination, knowing that just a few feet above our heads was the city, this huge bustling city with hundreds of thousands of people, and buildings and skyscrapers and history and I was here, underneath it all. I watched as we hurtled through 100-year-old tunnels  on my way to my studio apartment, with the tiny kitchen and the leaky shower and thought, “Wow. This is very, very different than the life I had back home in New Hampshire.”

I think that was one of the first times I really felt like a grown up.

What’s funny is that looking back, I realize how young I was when I thought that.

I can’t  help but think how different life is now than it was then. How feeling grown up is more of chore than I thought it would be. I also think about how happy I am with where I am now, and so grateful for the strange path that brought me here, including a winding subway ride under the streets of Boston over ten years ago.