The world outside is a sea of mist and fog, frost dancing on the ground and tickling the leaves around the train ties. For this time of day, the commuter service is quieter than usual. It should be packed with people who don't know where they're going and don't know why they're going, but it's just a few people dotted here and there, taking seats, taking air, taking weary moments of tired. The overhead racks are spaced with briefcases, heavy jackets, and gloves that will someday get lost.

I am on my way into London for a day of meetings, a day of traveling on lines and lines of London transport, which I will get to escape from when I have a visit with my therapist this afternoon. Once that is done, I get to meet my team in London, as we have a pre-drink for a work event this afternoon that takes place on a boat, an event I nicknamed the Good Ship Lollipop. It will be so dark and so cold by the time I take the train home that the stars will shine like beacons.

My grandmother sent me a letter a few weeks ago, her handwriting strong and curling, the envelope sealed with happy face stickers. She tells me about her life and laughingly dismisses it to me, telling me that I couldn't possibly be interested in her stories about warm weather and trips to Albertson's. The truth is I'm very interested in it. I love the little stories about the everyday life that I remember, too-shaking the plastic wrapper off the Dallas Morning News in the morning. Gloria Campos on Channel 5 news, her hair an immobile helmet. Loud announcements from obnoxious newscasters that the Central Expressway is gummed up again. An Eggo Waffle for breakfast.

These are things that I know. These are things that I remember. These are things that I hope I never forget.

My family still has a perception of me that is no longer the case. When they talk to me, it's clear that they don't know me-they seem to think I am flash and severely status conscious, when that's simply not the case. I'm not even the person that they used to know. I wonder if they know that I am much calmer and quieter now. It's not so easy to make me angry, I don't go off like a spout of rage anymore. I don't have to talk all the time, I don't have to play parts that aren't mine to play.

I have tried to tell them this, but once you cast a mold of someone you're unlikely to want to try to change it. My therapist once asked me who I was. I told him I was whoever the people I was around wanted me to be.

So it's clear that no one expects me to be tranquil. I like to sit and look out the window. I can wait in a queue without losing my rag. I try not to ever play parts, this is me, this imperfect, awkward bottled up creature is all that I am, I can't be anyone else.

In return, I sent my grandmother a thick envelope of pictures of my life, filled with the mundane of my everyday-our kitchen. Me laughing at the BBC Proms in the Park. The view from my walk to work, the view over Westminster. My arms around Melissa and Jeff, my arms around Angus, my arms around Maggie. My desk in the study, with a view of the field and orchids obstructing the window.

Everyday life can change. I don't sit on the 635 in traffic anymore. I don't run from air conditioned spot to air conditioned spot. I don't go to Dallas Stars games, and I don't know the stats for the players. I don't go to Borders and I don't get to eat Mexican food near as much as I'd like.

My everyday is just as mundane. Buying tickets for the train. A cup of coffee at one of the many hundreds of Starbucks. Hunting in a conference room for a LAN connection. Rinsing out the coffee pot at home. Padding around in pajamas after a long day of work. Carrying a yoga mat to one of the things I love most in the world, and curling inside of my own muscles as I stretch and move.

I'm not special or unique, this is perhaps a common metamorphosis. Maybe this is what all of us find, when we change the very structure of who we are. Lives are often spent wondering what's on the other side, what's life like if I were different, what's life like if I could only just be there. And when you get there, you find that the there you managed to sneak into changes you so much you don't recognize the you on the other side of the fence. The shape of the world has changed, and with it, you have changed.

Sometimes I wonder'¦if I ran into Kim again, what would he think about my life? What would he say? Would he approve?

And I think I knew him well enough to know that he would disapprove wholeheartedly about my work. He would despair of my job stress, my income, and the hierarchy. He would lecture me about the bourgeois and the workman's role.

He and Angus are so radically different that I don't think they would get on at all. But I do think Kim would look at my feelings for Angus and be glad for me. I think he would be pleased that I was so madly in love, and lucky enough to be so madly loved. I think he would smile and tell me he was happy for me, and I think he would mean it.

And above all, I think he would look at my mundane and look at the quiet me that I have become, and in my mind I see him nodding, a small smile on his lips, as he tells me how he is happy that I have finally found peace. He would remind me that life with me was always such chaos, something I thought was normal, something I thought life was until my therapist told me otherwise, and now I have a new shiny brass ring to reach for.

I have found peace. Job aside, I have found peace. And for that, I love my mundane. I love my train ride with the silent stiff commuters, I love the progress with my therapist, I love my view from the window, I love my cat curling around my ankle and I love my personal furnace that I curl up next to in the soft bed every night.

Here's to second chances.

And third.

And fourth and fifth.

As many tries as it takes to get it right.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:07 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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