This morning, I boarded the front car of a fairly crowded train and moved toward the seats. I hadn't even noticed that I entered through the door nearest the conductor, but he noticed me. Before I could even get in front of the seats, the conductor leaned over, tapped a seated passenger on the shoulder and asked the guy to get up for me. He was more than happy to do so and even helped make a pathway for me to get to the seat easily. Both men smiled kindly and waved off my thank you as though I shouldn't have even said it.
Showing posts with label what the joys of commuting mean to me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what the joys of commuting mean to me. Show all posts
Aside from the morning sickness, heartburn and carpal tunnel, I have had amazingly few issues with this pregnancy. I know how lucky I am that I haven't gained a lot of weight, and that I still look mostly like myself, just add a belly. I'm not apprehensive about caring for a baby. I'm not even nervous about labor, at least not yet. I have remained pretty confident in myself and I've been able to basically continue doing all the things I normally do. When I tell you I'm doing well, it's the truth. When it comes to the big things, the things that matter, it's all good and I'm happy.
It takes the little things to defeat me, apparently.
It had been well over a week since I'd shaved my legs. This morning, in the shower, I decided to try and shave them, to make myself feel a little more human, a little less unattractive. It was hard, and frustrating. It was difficult to reach, and I felt unbalanced, and it took me a while. By the time I was done, I felt worse than when I started. Mike asked me, perfectly innocently, whether I was done yet and said I should have told him if I'd be a while in the shower, so he could go use the other bathroom.
Without any way to know it, he'd kicked me when I was down. I snapped, told him I was just trying to feel better about myself, to feel a little more attractive, and I didn't know it would take me forever, and next time I just wouldn't bother because there was no point anyway. Then I didn't speak to him until breakfast.
The whole thing made me feel like a complete failure. I felt ugly, and unlike myself, and on top of all that I couldn't even be nice to my husband, who did absolutely nothing wrong.
When we left for work, my mood started going downhill again. My short commute, which I've been doing in some similar form for almost three years, and is second nature, now feels to me like the most difficult task of my day. I dread it, because of the crowds, because people are so rude and push me and bump into me, and these days that makes me want to scream at them.
Today, I got on the train even though it was crowded because it looked like there was enough of a path through toward the seats that I could get close enough for someone to see me and give up their seat. It didn't happen. All the gaps filled in and I couldn't get near the seats, and I couldn't get back out the door onto the platform. I had no choice but to grab onto a bar, do my best to balance, and focus on staying fully conscious.
I made it okay, but by the time I got off the train, I was no longer able to hold back the tears of defeat and frustration. I feel so absolutely ridiculous that I can't handle a short train ride when I should be perfectly capable of it. I backed away from the crowds, waited for the platform to empty out some, wiped my eyes, and headed slowly up the stairs.
I put my brave face on and came into work. I will spend the day giving the impression that I am the perfectly secure, together, with it pregnant woman who can handle anything. I'll fight the crowds and I'll make it back home. And then I'll sink into Mike's arms and let go, and admit to what an incompetent failure I really am.
He'll help me through the weekend, we'll do things that are within my abilities and my comfort zone, and I'll get some projects done. By Sunday, I'll feel confident and like myself again. By the middle of next week, I'll start to drown in the same painful feeling of failure that threatens me this morning, and he'll have to pick me up, dry my tears, and help me back to my feet. Again.
I fought my way onto a crowded train this morning, with just enough room so I could wedge in and stand in front of a row of seats. I am starting to get huge and unwieldy, and it normally takes about one second for someone to get up for me. Today, though, I was in front of two young professional men, about 30 years old, one wearing a wedding band and one not. They wore dress pants and some form of blue/white patterned dress shirts, both sitting down. Neither was reading or listening to headphones, and both sat there and watched me approach, remaining firmly in their seats. I looked at them, and they looked at me, and as we entered into this staring contest, they each had about five more seconds before I started giving them hell about not bothering to get up.
I was so busy being annoyed at them, it took me a second to notice the guy down the row from them. He was about 50 years old, no wedding band, dressed in a very nice suit, carrying a briefcase, listening to headphones and reading a paper. Even through the headphones and the newspaper, he had noticed the other two guys keeping their seats. He went out of his way to get up for me and clear a path so that I could get over and sit down.
With a final glare at the two guys sitting down, I made my way over, grinned at the guy who got up, and started to thank him. He didn't even wait for thanks -- he nodded, smiled kindly and moved away to a place where he had room enough to stand.
I held back from hollering at the other two that they should pay attention and learn a thing or two. I really wanted to, but somehow I managed to keep my trap shut for once.
Monday and today, when I got on the train in the morning, someone immediately jumped up for me so I could sit. Both were young women, I'm guessing about 23-25 age range. Both dressed simply but professionally. They were very kind and didn't even wait for me to thank them before moving away to find a place to stand. Yesterday, nobody would give up a seat. Everybody, after glancing up at me, was very busy keeping their noses securely in their books or papers, or pretending to be asleep. One girl's eyelids were actually doing that thing where they shake because you're trying so hard to keep them shut.
There is a story I'm dying to tell you about a person I barely know who is really challenging my patience. I've gotten into a fight with him on at least two occasions now, and his rudeness, arrogance and general above-everyone attitude has pushed me way past my limit and I can't ignore it anymore. Unfortunately, I can't tell that story here right now. At some point, hopefully I will be able to. In the meantime, suffice to say, I am normally a very patient and tolerant person, but I'm now yelling at people I hardly even know.
This morning I went to the doctor. Everything looks good, my belly is measuring properly, and no problems. It was a red letter day - the first appointment I've registered a weight above my pre-pregnancy weight! Finally, at 23 weeks, I've gained a total of 4 pounds. I have to go for the glucose test in a few weeks, I have to call about a hospital tour, decide whether we want to do childbirth classes, and we have some thinking to do about whether to bank the baby's cord blood. Other than that, all is well and I go back again in a month.
i wish i didn't have this story to tell
Posted by Amy Labels: portraits, what the joys of commuting mean to meEver since my brother died, I do this thing whenever I get really nervous, sad, stressed or worried. I sort of ball up my hand and rest my thumbnail in the indents between my teeth. It's completely involuntary, and for a long time, I didn't know I was doing it, but I did it constantly. I'm now aware of it, I catch myself doing it, and it's rare that I get to that point these days.
This morning, I caught myself with my thumbnail between my two front teeth on my walk to work.
I don't want to tell this story. With every fiber of my being, I want to shove it under the surface and pretend it never happened. But it's eating at me, and so I'm going to tell it. For me. Just to get it out there so I can move on. And also because I committed to writing portraits of people who give me seats on the train while I'm pregnant. But mostly this is just for me to clear my head.
I boarded a crowded PATH train this morning around 8:30. I stood in front of a group of two seats, both filled. A couple, mid-20's, looked like they were in a discussion. It was only a moment, though, before she noticed me and got up. He immediately said he was sorry, he didn't see me there. I really looked at them then, him sitting in the seat and her standing up. Neither of them looked like they were really focusing on anything. He made a couple of rude comments about how she could have been pregnant, too, by him or his friends. She told him to shut up. I didn't catch all the details, because I had my headphones on.
By this point, I was trying to ignore them; it was obvious to me that they were wasted on something. She dressed for a night out in a mini-skirt, leggings, belly shirt and large gold cross necklace, I admit I wondered what they were doing on their way to the WTC stop with all the commuters.
A minute later, she leaned toward me and said "Journal Square, right?" Journal Square is a stop further out in NJ, not toward Manhattan, where the train was heading. I took off my headphones and explained to her how to get off and transfer to the right train at the next stop.
She said okay. Then began grabbing the train handle and flinging it as hard as she could back and forth, yelling loudly about the fucking new jersey trains, fucking ridiculous, can't fucking figure them out, she was born and fucking bred in new york city. On and on. And berating him about taking them on the wrong train.
They were far gone and putting on a show. Their eyes were out of focus and their complexions were pasty and unhealthy.
This enrages me more than anything. To flaunt your dangerous and unhealthy habits in front of me is a slap in the face. I wrapped my arm around my belly and focused on the baby, ignoring them. I drew on the need to protect myself and the baby and I kept my mouth shut. But it took everything I had, and I mean everything, not to yell at them. Tell them my brother died of a drug overdose and if they didn't clean up their act and respect themselves, they would too. Tell them they have no idea what they're doing to themselves and they're assholes for not protecting the lives they've been given.
I kept silent. It's not my place to put myself out there like that right now, and it's not my business what other people do to themselves. But it's still not okay. It's just not.
They got off at the next stop to catch the right train and it went quiet.
The woman sitting on the opposite side of the train, facing me, is chewing gum. She has dyed blond, feathered hair and she's wearing sunglasses on an underground train. She has one of those mouths where her front teeth, which are ever so slightly too white, are fully exposed whenever her mouth is open. She chews her gum with a wide open mouth, jaw rotating in frantic little circles, all the way to the last stop.
portrait of someone who gave me a seat on the train
Posted by Amy Labels: portraits, what the joys of commuting mean to meI can tell that I'm really starting to show, especially this week, by the way people look at me. I am interested in a sort of character study of the people who actually acknowledge me or offer to move or help in some way. Are these people just nicer or feeling generous that day, or is there something in their lives that particularly motivates them to care about a pregnant woman? I don't know, but let's watch these people over the next few months and see what unfolds.
This morning when I got on the train, a woman immediately gave me her seat. She didn't even ask me if I wanted it, she just got up and offered it to me. There was something that struck me as very sweet about her personality, even through that brief interaction, though she wasn't smiley and there was a slight air of melancholy about her, probably just the early-morning blues.
She was in her mid-30's and overweight, but not fat. She was dressed simply in a conservative black dress and a long necklace, with a calf-length black raincoat with khaki trim. Minimal makeup, and a lovely face framed by blond hair held loosely in a clip. She wore sensible sneakers for her commute. Over her arm she carried a frayed black tote bag, and in her hand a worn out Louis Vuitton handbag.
When I glanced at her left hand holding onto the pole, there was a simple ladies' wedding ring with a small diamond, slightly scratched up and well-worn. Below that, on the same finger, also very well-worn, sat a man's wedding ring.
I almost kissed the girl on the train this morning who jabbed her husband in the ribs with her elbow and made him give me his seat.
A few minutes later, I glanced over and she was flipping through photos of a very small baby girl on her iPhone.
I rush down the stairs onto the waiting train and spot one open seat. One of the two large guys on either side of it has one tree trunk of a leg spread halfway across the empty seat. My newly visible bump and I move for the seat, with apologies and excuse mes, but he ignores me and doesn't move. So I'm wedged between the two large guys, with one of them rudely pushing his leg across my seat and spreading his arms out, forcing me into as little space as possible.
The only reason I endure this at all, instead of just standing up, is that I still get dizzy and faint on the train; that doesn't seem to be easing up along with the nausea. We finally make it to the last stop, and I try to get up and get out into the fresh air and open space, but the guy sticks his whole arm out to the side, blocking me from moving, until he hauls himself up out of his seat and plows out the door.
Puking up my breakfast, trying to get a second breakfast down and in doing so missing the small window of time where the trains aren't too crowded. Walking to the train station in the rain, waiting on a crowded platform. Boarding the train, holding on for dear life and staring intently at the floor to try and combat the queasiness and dizziness. A huge sigh of relief when a seat opens up at the first stop. I dive for it, and know I will make it the rest of the way without incident.
A middle-aged man with a kind face, wearing an ever-so-slightly shabby sports coat and reading what appears to be a law school paper. He's packed into an awkward spot in a train that's already way over capacity. He notices me stuck between two other people without anyplace to hold on and he wedges himself into an even more uncomfortable position so that I have room to stand up straight and hold onto a pole.
On this very snowy and windy with a layer of ice just for fun morning, every stairway and sidewalk leaves us in danger of this happening:
Except probably without Stewie saying "Cool" afterward.
Stepping one foot through the door to get on a (half empty) train, only to have a short Jersey Italian shove me back out so he could rush through the door to grab a seat.
Spending ten minutes crammed nose to chest with a six foot, extremely rotund man wearing a cheap leather jacket and a porn 'stache.
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Welcome to my new feature, "what the joys of commuting mean to me." I figure, why should I be the only one to experience these things? This way you all can share in the triumphs and tragedies along with me.
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