Dispatch from the London Train: And Then It Did

I'm sat writing this post on a train to London. By the time you're reading this I'll be there, hanging out with one of my best friends. It's got me thinking how different things feel since the last time I was on a train to London. It was the very end of September and I was on my way to see Watsky, having received what could possibly be the worst news for someone to receive, after a long couple of months of bad news after bad news. I was at the lowest I had been for a long time, possibly ever, and even though I had friends around me it felt like nothing was going to get better. And then it did.

I attribute a lot of my sudden change in mental state to that night. Although I was stuck in a negative cycle I still managed to have one of the best gig experiences that I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying. Even though in every lull of the show I felt like crying, the atmosphere of the venue and the gig lifted me right up out of it, propelling me to cloud nine.

So much has changed since that night. On the one hand, I wish I could take back many of the things that happened - the vast majority of which I had no control over. On the other, those experiences have wildly changed the way I view the world. They brought me closer to the truth of mortality and they have honestly taught me to appreciate life in a way that I had forgotten. I am writing this a much happier person than I was on that night - still grieving over past events but with a renewed sense of purpose towards the future.

I am a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. I don't mean that everything has to be positive, but that everything has a purpose - even if isn't clear at the time. This isn't an act of devaluing events, nor is it attributing more to something than there is - it is more a matter of taking things as they come, accepting them for what they are, and treating them as such.

Trains are funny things. Taking people forwards, pulling people away. They're a strange in-between place - a waiting room of sorts. Trains are where everything changes and nothing does.