Sitting at the station on a cold hard bench. Holding a ticket in my hand. “Destination – ARRIVED.” The train moves all too quickly, and yet the longer I ride along the cold iron rails of life, the more I realize that maybe “ARRIVED” is a place that doesn’t exist – a made up fairy tale that we tell ourselves in order to keep us going along the tracks.
There are so many ups and downs along the journey: new jobs that are nothing like what you thought you were signing up for, relationships that come at you like a bus and leave you slightly broken, expensive things that break just when you don’t have the money to fix them, friendships that turn dramatic when all you need is a break, a cold beer and a smile.
And as I sit in my seat, holding my ticket, I continually tell myself, “We are almost there. I am almost arrived. Any minute the announcement will come ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are nearing our final destination. Please gather your belongings and thank you for choosing to travel with us this afternoon.” However, the longer that I ride this train, it is slowly sinking in that ARRIVED doesn’t exist and we never get there. That maybe the train is my new home, and I am going to have to be content living in a small cramped seat, and eating bad food from the dinning car.
And lyrics from a song echo in my mind over and over as I sit waiting in my seat “Once, in a while when it’s good, it will feel like it should…” Living on the train is a tense marriage. I am waiting to be ARRIVED, I am realizing that we never get there. Somehow it is only once in a while that life feels like it should be.
Maybe the train stops for a pit stop, and we get to get off and stretch our legs in the sunshine. Opening our eyes we look around the beautiful rolling green hills, and majestic architecture of a city. We get to walk to a quaint cafe, sipping coffee and relaxing in the fresh air. Feeling like “Finally, this is good. This is what I have been waiting for. This is what ARRIVED must be like.” And as we drain the last of our cup of coffee, a whistle yelps in the background, reminding us that this was just a glimpse, and we are to get back on the train. Back to enduring. Back to the cramped stiff seat and stale recycled air.
It all seems a bit backward, that we should be in the open air of the country and the busy downtown of the city all the time, and enduring the waiting on the train occasionally…but the longer I ride this trip, the more I am realizing that this life is backward. We sit and endure for much too long, in order to get the glimpses of good life, of fresh air and happiness.
And as I look over my shoulder once again, bidding goodbye to the quaint coffee shop and the rolling hills, I begin to think that maybe the trick is to learn to like the train as well. Maybe sitting in my little seat and holding my ticket I need to learn to say “Thank you that I have a seat. Thank you that I have friendly passengers to pass the hours with. Thank you that when we travel through cities where the weather pounds, I am inside my little train, and shielded from the brutality of it all. Thank you that my little stiff seat has a window. Thank you that sometimes I can open the window and let the air in.”
Maybe the trick to the whole thing is to love the train. And love the journey that we are on. I think if I am holding out for “Destination – ARRIVED” I think I will be desperately disappointed when I realize that it isn’t a real place.
ARRIVED isn’t a place that ever existed on a map. Maybe I need to learn to see that ARRIVED has been cleverly tucked away in a series of places: the coffee shop, the rolling green hills, in a friendly smile at my stiff seat. The longer I ride this train, the more I realize that I need to learn to have eyes to see ARRIVED both on the train, and in the glimpes of life when it feels good like it should.
Jenni Brown Writes. 