Have I ever told you about the one time that I was on the subway heading home from dinner with friends when I watched a young woman in front of me try desperately to keep it together? No? Oh, well, perfect! When I say "keep it together," I mean keep it together in the sense of trying to stop crying for even half a second and stop the gawking of total strangers - all of whom were happy to observe her moment of crisis while never even thinking about offering assistance. I remember having pity for her (an emotion that makes me extremely uncomfortable). I thought "God, I hope that's never me."
Cut to: 3 months later when I'm riding the F train home, listening to music, when fucking Adele assaults me with her impossibly gorgeous voice singing to me about what it's like to feel heartbreak. Until that moment, I had been doing such a good job. I had successfully trained myself to double-click the home button, swipe to the right, touch the "next" icon, and breathe a sigh of relief as the opening bars to something much less threatening played in my earbuds. I was a master avoider.
Cut to: 3 months later when I'm riding the F train home, listening to music, when fucking Adele assaults me with her impossibly gorgeous voice singing to me about what it's like to feel heartbreak. Until that moment, I had been doing such a good job. I had successfully trained myself to double-click the home button, swipe to the right, touch the "next" icon, and breathe a sigh of relief as the opening bars to something much less threatening played in my earbuds. I was a master avoider.
I didn't do it this time. Instead, I decided to sit with the discomfort I felt and go with it. Adele wasn't even finished singing "that you settled down" that I was already in tears. Slightly buzzed from the cocktails that accompanied dinner, I looked down at my lap and let myself cry. Luckily, it was late at night and only the other few losers who had nowhere to go but home were with me on the train, but damn. I cried hard. In public.
In the first few weeks after my breakup, I really missed having my (ex) boyfriend to cuddle with. I missed having someone to share the things I was excited about, I missed the friendship that I had lost overnight. I was prepared for all of that. I wasn't prepared for the phenomenon that I'll call subway sadness. Monday mornings on the train to work became the worst. No matter what book or New York Magazine article I've selected for distraction, no matter what "happy music" playlist I'd carefully crafted, there was a moment between 4th and 9th St. and Jay St. where I entered the vortex.
There is something about the solo subway ride that is inherently sad. So many different souls traveling to their respective places (who really knows where). So many stories. So many homeless people sitting in their own urine. I get intense on the subway, clearly. Everything I feel and experience is magnified: introspection, curiosity, fear, excitement. For example, if I'm excited to meet friends for dancing, I will stare at the pole in the middle of the car anxiously, wanting desperately to release my inner stripper.
I was struck by this realization the other day when a friend expressed that she cried on the subway, too. I got [much too] excited about someone else being miserable on the subway. I was not alone! Now I had at least 2 other people who engaged in this embarrassing behavior. And that, to me, is enough to call it a phenomenon.
What I really think is that it's the one place in New York where no matter how many people are around me, I feel truly alone. Even when I don't feel alone, the reminder is always a subway ride away. And I'm not generally someone who is scared of being alone. And it's also not like I have fond memories of riding the subway with my ex-boyfriend. Sometimes, I'll hop on, sit down, and it will just hit me in the middle of a tunnel: you're completely alone in a city of 8 million strangers. No amount of RuPaul can change that.
That feeling of anonymity can be pretty shitty in the months after a breakup, but it's also one of the things I love about New York. I can venture out and spend a day in the city and not see anyone that I know if I don't want to. Also, if I end up crying on the subway, I can take out my feeling of sadness and aggression on any stranger walking too close to me on the streets. Or, I can put my head between my legs and pretend to be a crackhead. Or, I can divert myself from my usual route home and instead take the train to one of my friend's apartments to remind myself that I'm only alone if I want to be.
I really do want to live out my stripper fantasy on one of those poles, though. Someday.
I was struck by this realization the other day when a friend expressed that she cried on the subway, too. I got [much too] excited about someone else being miserable on the subway. I was not alone! Now I had at least 2 other people who engaged in this embarrassing behavior. And that, to me, is enough to call it a phenomenon.
What I really think is that it's the one place in New York where no matter how many people are around me, I feel truly alone. Even when I don't feel alone, the reminder is always a subway ride away. And I'm not generally someone who is scared of being alone. And it's also not like I have fond memories of riding the subway with my ex-boyfriend. Sometimes, I'll hop on, sit down, and it will just hit me in the middle of a tunnel: you're completely alone in a city of 8 million strangers. No amount of RuPaul can change that.
That feeling of anonymity can be pretty shitty in the months after a breakup, but it's also one of the things I love about New York. I can venture out and spend a day in the city and not see anyone that I know if I don't want to. Also, if I end up crying on the subway, I can take out my feeling of sadness and aggression on any stranger walking too close to me on the streets. Or, I can put my head between my legs and pretend to be a crackhead. Or, I can divert myself from my usual route home and instead take the train to one of my friend's apartments to remind myself that I'm only alone if I want to be.
I really do want to live out my stripper fantasy on one of those poles, though. Someday.
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