Tuesday, January 19th

When things are going seemingly well in life like what I've experienced thus far, I suppose it's only a matter of time before there are bumps in the road. I knew sooner or later I would experience some consecutive challenges. A bad day, one might call it. Those times where anything that can go wrong, will. Well... you guessed it. Today was that day. The universe just wasn't agreeing with me in the way that it has been. While I tried to remain calm both internally and externally I found that I was becoming more irritable and frustrated as the day progressed. I really hate when this happens too because I like to think of myself as a pretty optomistic individual. Sometimes, however, you just can't help it...

Lets start at the beginning. I woke up at 6:30 this morning to my alarm and hopped in the shower. While I normally turn the water on before I get in to make sure it's running with warm water, today I chose the get in first method. Obvious (now) mistake. The water usually gets hot almost right away so I figured things would be cool, no pun intended. To make a long story short and a long shower shorter, the water was freezing. It warmed up after a while but I was already halfway cleansed by then. Anyway, a little thing like this of course put only a minor damper on my day. I was ready to go check out a couple SoHo apartments with the highest hopes and in the best spirits. I met up with my Jamaican realitor, Adrian at 9am. This guy has been so helpful and commited to finding me a place. He really is good at what he does. To put today's search in a nutshell and save you the experience of reliving my unsuccesful hunt, lets just say it was big FAIL. In fact, I've had quite a lot of potentially great apartment ventures that have ended in disappointment. An apartment out here can be lost within a matter of minutes if someone beats you to an application. It's pretty crazy because I've never seen such competitive house hunting like this in my life. By 10:30 am he was ready to head back to his office to find more places to see. At this point I was so tired from apartment hunting and the previous long work day that all I wanted to do was go home. On top of that, I had to finish some work for Carson and get ready to leave for my internship by 1 in the afternoon. So we said our goodbyes and I told him I'd give him a call.

Stressed, exhausted, and drained I headed underground to get on my train. Right as I headed towards my entrance, the train had just pulled up. I quickly ran down the stairs to catch it and then took a seat. Immediately after the doors shut and we take off I realize I just got on the wrong train. I was now backtracking. Annoyed with myself, I got off at the next stop and waited for the return train to pick me up. This was at the Fulton St station now which offers many trains and transfers. My train arrives and I get in and sit down. Believe it or not, I got on the wrong train AGAIN. Backtracking even more! At this point it was almost comical even though I was still aggrevated with the situation I had gotten myself into. Finally, I got myself to the correct platform and quite conveniently missed it by maybe ten seconds. Right then and there I told myself, "Okay... this is going to be that day." Accepted. I think I can deal with pretty much anything that life throws at me as long as I can mentally prepare myself. So I waited patiently until the good ol' J train came to take me home. I got on with a feeling of relief as I knew I was definitely going the right way this time. I put on my ipod and let myself zone out on shuffle. Before we could even get to the next stop the subway completely comes to a hault. This happens sometimes so I didn't really think anything of it. I listened to a smiths song and then hendrix rocked me out until I became aware that we still weren't moving. I was sitting next to a middle aged woman who seemed in great spirits and removed my earphones to ask if she knew what the hold up was. She explained the announcer had said the trains were being re-routed due to a problem at Chambers Street. Chambers was the next stopping point for the train I was on so it made sense as to why we couldn't go anywhere. I was bothered by this but not surprised. After all, it was clearly my bad day that had stopped the train. Unfortunately other passengers had to suffer through it too. Sorry guys.

Ten minutes had passed and I noticed a girl a few feet away starting to... um, freak out. You could read the stress all over her face. Fifteen minutes had gone. She was starting to make noises and by this point pretty much everyone sharing this train car had taken note of her frustration. Twenty-five minutes went by. By this time I'm sure everyone, myself included was annoyed at the extensive subway pause. This girl was now stomping her feet and actually screaming. Oh yes, she was screaming. It was a twenty five (ish) year old woman acting as if she was a two year old throwing a tantrum. She then exits the train and has a cigarette inbetween cars. In case those of you non-subway-users are confused... this is all taking place underground. So on her "cig break" the woman sitting next to me who I had previously talked to leans in to me. I'm assuming she is from Jamaica or a nearby island because of her accent. She tells me, "you know, it's taken me a lonnnng time but I have gotten to a place where I know, when things aren't going my way it's because there are other plans for me." I smiled. She continues by saying that getting upset will never solve your problems, but only increase the negative energy. Of course she was referring to the 25 year old baby child smoking a cigarette. After this short, but enlightening conversation took place, an engineer came into our subway car to let us know we might be waiting for a few more minutes because of a re-route. The girl sees him talking to us and barges in demanding an explanation. He explains that he has no idea how long things will take to get moving and he apologizes. He was sincere and very polite. This only intensifies the rage inside of this young woman as she starts screaming at the engineer. It was pretty awkward for everyone watching. She yells, "fuck this shit! fuck this! I'm fired! I'm fucking fired!!!" and is almost at a level of hysterics as she is crying while speaking. She then stomps her way out of our car (as I'm sure she must've been embarassed) and into the next. 42 minutes of a total underground hault and maybe thirty seconds after the raging passenger exited our car, we were moving again.

Everyone that remained on the train looked around and smiled at each other, I'm sure with the same thought in mind. After this literally eye opening experience, my day was looked upon in a whole new light. I realized I can't get caught up in negative energy or pessism no matter what gets thrown into my day. Life really is about the attitude that you put out there. I found a way to clear my head with some mood changing tunes and got myself centered again. Once I had done so I was ready to take on the rest of my day. I know that sometimes things don't go as planned but I suppose that's why they say life is a mystery. Tomorrow is a new day and I will approach it the best way I know how. As my good friends, the Beatles once said - Oh bla di, oh bla da, Life Goes On...

Until we meet again,
Meg