I have seven hours until I catch my train in Katowice, Poland to Vienna, Austria at 5:20 a.m. I’m supposed to be in Vienna right now, finding my friend Elias’s place, whose couch I will be sleeping on there (here’s a moment to say thank you to him). The story behind my current wait is that my first train was an hour behind and so I missed my second and then third train connections. In Katowice, I tried to book a train for 11:20 p.m., a sleeper train, but it was full, so I booked the next one for 5:20. At first I was sad, aimless, and tired, but knew I had no place to sleep except for a train seat at 5:20 or a metal chair that I have to lock my belongings to. So I sat in a metal chair and tried to stay awake.
Train stations feel like airports during the late hours. As people clear out and some people dreamlessly sleep, nodding in their metal chairs, nuzzled with their backpacks, there’s a dim peace, or maybe it’s a dim melancholy. I think it depends on who you are and how much you’ve had to wait.
In the time I’ve been here, stuck in this train station, no one to drink wine and talk with, just me and silence with a side-dish consisting of a cup of espresso and a glass of water, I’ve been thinking about too late.
Well, really, my brain started thinking autonomously, as it is wont to do in liminal spaces in liminal hours.
In the ideation of lateness, it thought about my last relationship, now two and a half months over. It didn’t end messy like a torn-up room, it ended frayed, like a knot on a nylon bootstring that has to be cut last minute to release your foot. You want to burn the two ends and repair it but you just have to keep going.
It thought about my array of too-lates and missed opportunities and I took the reins from there to assuage sadness over the matter.
The last three months of the relationship, I was heavily into the process of writing my first novel, and it took every bit of emotional and mental energy from me to complete it on my self-given timeframe and not be ashamed of it. Or, rather, I put all of that into it as opposed to it taking it from me.
This isn’t to say that I was the only one who fucked up, because I wasn’t. and no one did anything egregious or unforgivable so I’m not throwing my ex under the bus. But communications weren’t had that should have been, words weren’t spoken or processed well, and in all of this, comfort walked away silently in an attempt to exit the room in a way that did not disturb anyone, but its absence was noticed and felt.
So, this is to say that I think I can trace some of the steps of those last months and understand some of my part in it–it being the necessity to have that string cut and trudge further with it unrepaired.
I poured myself into my writing wholly (I was warned not to do this but I don’t think it’s a choice, or at the very least a choice that is hard to balance). I still do put my everything into my writing, but it’s different when you dont have anyone who needs at least some of that emotional and mental energy. I wouldnt say it’s easier on my mental and emotional health, but it certainly doesn’t feel like I’m dropping the ball for someone else, so I guess that’s good.
And this isn’t some woeful bellowing about love lost, it’s a muttering to the self about what my future holds knowing that I want to keep writing. Hell, it honestly feels more like I have to keep writing. But I’ve lost for it in some ways, and i’ve neglected for it, and I want to make sure I dont do that again. For my own sake and the sake of whomever comes into my future unprepared (though I’m not sure preparation for love bodes very well, and may be best left to having it find you and you working with it). Maybe it’s something that gets easier with time and experience–it being the juggling of my priorities with writing and relationships and time/timing. I think so, but I dont know. It’s scary, like this trip, like knowing I have to be awake for seven more hours and struggling to not nuzzle my bag in a chair and just nod away for a while as strangers patter and wait for their trains around me.
This is the first time a train has been so late it absconded with my ability to get a nights sleep in a planned destination, so if you do travel by train in Europe, this isn’t a very common occurrence, but if and when it happens it will likely fuck with you a little. Being stranded in a place you don’t know and didn’t plan on getting to know is like meeting a stranger who says things 10 minutes into your conversation that make you uncomfortable enough to reassess having a conversation with them in the first place. It’s hard to comfortably exit the room in that situation and your thoughts must be processed and not allowed to walk away without saying what needs to be said.
I guess, in my writing and processing, I think my array of too lates are a learning experience, though I think it will take work to learn how to juggle my love of writing and my wanting to stay with it with my love for another person and my wanting to stay with them. It’ll probably be tough, but maybe I can find the balance with time and experience. Though, against that, I very highly doubt the Polish train system learned or will learn fuck-all about making people a day late and a few more dollars/złoty short, but I’ll sure as shit try to.
-Daylon M. Phillips (09/07/2018)
Daylon M. Phillips 