The Distance

I almost punched a woman on the train this morning.

Pulling into Grand Central Terminal on the express subway platform, I joined with all too many of my fellow passengers to exit the train and move across to the local. The doors open. I stood up. I moved towards the door. But in the crunch of too many individuals moving through too small a space, and a unexpectedly large man standing in the way of part of the door, I found myself stuck, unable to move. I paused for a moment to let a path open in front of me.

Nudge nudge. In that split-second of waiting, I feel someone pushing at me from behind. Move it mister. Move! You're just standing there! Get off the train!

I look back to the woman making the gestures. She glares at me, and again reminds of where she wants me to go. Never mind that there was an obstacle blocking my way. Never mind that this all took place in merely a fraction of a second. Never mind that she came moments away from my hand meeting her face.

The doorway frees up, and I take a step off the train. I move across the platform to the waiting local car, and enter. To my right, I here the whines of that same woman, telling her friend of the horrible person who stood in her way, who did not go where she wanted him to go. That a*&hole, she says.

My reaction in the moment of this ridiculous encounter was to stand still even firmer, to refuse to move in response to this woman's demands that I budge.

Don't tell me where I should go. Don't tell me what I should be doing? Let me guide my own path. Stop pushing!

Leaving the 68th street station only minutes later, these words reverberate through my head, and a smirk comes across my face. How true this is. How real it is.

We move through this world, especially in our youth, being told by others exactly what we should do, how we should behave, where we should be going. We seek advice and counsel, and finally make decisions on our own. But sometimes you need to just cover your ears to make all the sounds of others telling you where to go shut up. You don't want to hear it anymore. You want to make your own choices, be your own person, and go your own direction.

There is no grand plan. There is no "supposed to." Life is all a matter of choices adding up into a larger narrative. Nothing was predetermined. There is no story to live out.

But what if the Israelites had wanted to flee Egypt for Zimbabwe, rather than the Land of Israel? What if they didn't want to leave at all? Can we blame them? Would you have followed the Divinely-drawn path?

I find myself at a crossroads. So much of my life has been defined by what I was "supposed" to be, what I was "supposed" to do. I was "supposed" to come to New York, to the center of the world, to make it big. And now I'm retreating, back to Southern California, to Los Angeles of all places.

And I couldn't be happier.

Because, there, on the slopes of the Santa Monica Hills, I found a place that meets my needs, that makes me happy. I found a place that speaks to my ideas and goals and interests. And it makes no sense. It does not fit into the story line. It is a full break from the scene before.

But that's OK.

Because this is a subway car, and the doors may be open, and I want to move. But I will go my own path. No matter how much that lady behind me yells and whines and screams, I will not listen to her. I will not aquiesce. I will go the distance. I will succeed. But I will do it my way.

Comments

[Andrew]

You gotta make your own kind of music,
Sing your own special song,
Make your own kind of music,
Even if nobody else sings along.