Stranger on a Train

For several hours each day, I sit alone, or squished between people, on a train. I am a stranger. A quirky, production-dressed person among vacationers and people in suits. I am alone. For even if several of us emerge from the train to travel in the van to the studio, until then, we are almost always separate, each among strangers on the train.

Not until this week did I feel this so clearly. Normally on a soap, we ADs are on different schedules, one with a short day, the other with a long. So I spent months becoming used to the aloneness. But after a few weeks of only post production, the same schedule, and therefore often traveling with a coworker, traveling alone actually felt very alone. It's not that we had talked for the whole ride or anything, but somehow traveling alone again made me quite aware of being a stranger on the train.

It will be nice when we return to production again. It's not that I'll necessarily be traveling with coworkers, but I will get to return to what I used to call "the lovely mix of studio and editing" that was my job. So that even if I am a stranger on the train, I will be surrounded by lots of friends once I get to work.

Because there's nothing wrong with being alone--often it's great--as long as you know that you won't be a stranger on the other end of your trip.