I rode the train from Harvard Square to Jamaica Plain last night. Saturday night, alone, headed home. I knew there was nobody waiting for me, and I was coming from nobody, but for the next 45 minutes, I would be part of a small community, united in public transit. I chatted with a friendly acquaintance in the station, engaged in an quick flirtation between stops, and bobbed my head to a street performer's amplified harmonica.
I have lately spent many nights in this way, free from rehearsals and social obligations, and not always by choice. There is a new loneliness in my life as a single woman. Unlike the loneliness that creeps into relationships, this feeling bears a certain humility, or humiliation - I'm not yet sure which. I see my own judgment in peoples' eyes, asking me who is absent from my side and why I haven't got plans on a Saturday night.
I'm not indignant alone; I'm quiet and simple, and sometimes I feel shame. And although I identify as a third grader waiting in vain for a team captain to call me to play - left out and publicly dismissed, I know that I am more like a transfer student with nowhere to sit at lunch, mostly unnoticed and privately alienated, sad that the others don't know my light, sad that it has to be wasted between me and my lunch.
Yet I find myself unable to open up. I can't abide the tiny injustice of being misunderstood, mistreated, missed. For now, this feels right - anonymity and a table for one.
I have lately spent many nights in this way, free from rehearsals and social obligations, and not always by choice. There is a new loneliness in my life as a single woman. Unlike the loneliness that creeps into relationships, this feeling bears a certain humility, or humiliation - I'm not yet sure which. I see my own judgment in peoples' eyes, asking me who is absent from my side and why I haven't got plans on a Saturday night.
I'm not indignant alone; I'm quiet and simple, and sometimes I feel shame. And although I identify as a third grader waiting in vain for a team captain to call me to play - left out and publicly dismissed, I know that I am more like a transfer student with nowhere to sit at lunch, mostly unnoticed and privately alienated, sad that the others don't know my light, sad that it has to be wasted between me and my lunch.
Yet I find myself unable to open up. I can't abide the tiny injustice of being misunderstood, mistreated, missed. For now, this feels right - anonymity and a table for one.
