My Traumatic Experience

Now if this is truly my first and only traumatic experience I can recount in my life, then I’m doing pretty well. The story goes like this.

So, I take the MARC train to and from work everyday. The MARC is a commuter train that runs from West Virginia, through Frederick and Montgomery County, and into Washington, DC. In the morning, I board at 7:36am en route to Union Station in Washington, DC. I arrive by 8:30am most days. At the end of the day, I board by 5:15 and usually arrive at Germantown, MD by 6:05pm. Where it goes past Germantown, I do not know. That is not my business.

Well last week it became my business in the most traumatic way.

So when I get on the train, I get all comfy and nestled in my seat. I pull out my iPhone and turn Spotify on to whatever is tickling my fancy at the moment, usually Jason Mraz or Deadmau5 (different, huh?). I digress. Once I show the friendly conductor my ticket, I go to sleep. Now here’s the thing; EVERYONE goes to sleep and EVERYONE wakes up on time for their stop. I’ve mastered this commuter skill as well. I usually will set an alarm for 6:00pm so I’m up in time.

Well on this particular day, my routine was the same. I got on, sat down, put my headphones on, and went to sleep. This time, I woke up as we were pulling off from Germantown station. I immediately went into panic mode. Everything in me said “okay I blew it.” I called my Mom in the most frightening voice and said “Mom, I did something really bad. I missed my stop and I don’t know where I’m going.” Like any mother, she began panicking, but tried to remain calm for my sake. I couldn’t think straight, so I hung up and ran to the nearest open train car so I could attempt to exit. By the time I got there, I almost missed the next stop. The train was beginning to pull off AGAIN as I yelled to the conductor to stop. I ran to him nearly crying and said “I missed my stop in Germantown. Is there anyway I can go back.”

This man looked at me and said “you better get off now, it only gets worse.”

REALLY?! Why would you say that to someone CLEARLY in distress. I hopped off the train and said okay in 5 seconds, I’m going to lose it. And I mean I lost it completely. I was crying hysterically. Mind you, I am not a cryer. It takes a lot to get me to cry and today I reached just the right “a lot.” The rude people around me didn’t cater to my hysteria at all. I called my mom crying hysterically.

Now this was a beautiful mother moment. She kept trying to calm me down and stop me to stop crying and immediately she said “I’ll take care of it.” That’s the amazing thing about parenting. No matter how much your kids act like they don’t need you, when they are at their moment of weakness, you always come through. I always talk about how independent I am, but in that moment the only person who could pull me up by my bootstraps was my mom and she did just that. She asked me where I was an I somehow told her Boyds, MD through my hysteria.

Now for anyone who knows where Boyds is in comparison to Germantown, do not care. I told you earlier, past Germantown is not my business.

So this is where I stood crying by myself in 97 degree weather with four men drinking beer across the tracks.

About three minutes later, my brother called. Of course I’m traumatized, so I don’t want to hear a bunch of foolishness. I pick up to the sound of him mocking my crying. Of course that sets me off even more. After his laugther and my hysteria he finally says.

“Man, do you know where you are.”

“NO! I’m lost and stuck here.”

“You’re in Boyds, MD. That’s 10 minutes from the house.”

Still in my mind, I was in the middle of nowhere in West Virginia. He assured me that he was on the way and everything would be okay. My mom called back trying to calm me down. Eventually I calmed down and started to be normal again.

In that moment, I lost it completely. I couldn’t control myself and lost all faith in myself to resolve the situation on my own. I catastrophized the whole situation into something way more than it had to be. Rather than staying calm and just dealing with it, I lost it. And I lost it real good too. That was the most traumatic experience of my life.

So I learned, Brittany you’ve got to relax. I’m not type A, but I do like to be in control of myself and situations involving me. Because I felt like I lost total control in this situation, I lost all control of me. I felt like I was headed to no man’s land, when I was really 10 minutes up the road. I learned, just breathe and it’ll be okay. I can’t control everything all the time, but just relax and it’ll all be okay.

I haven’t gone to sleep on the train since that day.

When I walked in the house, I could barely open the door before my mom was all over me, hugging me, and making sure I was okay. The mother’s love for her children is incredible. Then she said “aawww I guess I do like you.”

Charlotte always wins.

We Need Those People

Every morning when I get off the MARC train, I see the same people. I see the same homeless people. When I exit the first set of double doors, there’s two men who sit against the wall to the left, one says good morning to as many people as he can while the other shakes his cup for change. When I exit the 1st street secret door, there’s three men who surround the door. The first man is generally sleep while the other two also shake their cup hoping for a friendly passerby. Everyone morning, the busy and well fed commuters brush past them ignoring their good mornings and hungry bellies.

I, too, am one of those commuters.

Yesterday a man stopped me when I was probably 20 feet away from my office. I thought not today sir, I’m almost at work. He went through this whole story about not having money to get back to West Virginia where he lives. He said he was trying to earn $17 to get back on the MARC train. He pulled out his identification and everything. With about $27 in my wallet, I lied to his face and said “I’m sorry sir, I don’t carry cash. Have a good day though.” I felt bad for a second, but went about my day. Something similar happened in Louisville at about 3:00am as a I stumbled home from the Big Gay Dance at ACPA, but I gave into his story so I could get home.

Today, I saw a busy and well fed commuter do something different. She did something that no one has done in my two weeks being here.

A tall, well-dressed woman stopped to the homeless man who greets the commuters good morning and the conversation went like this…

“Hey John! I brought you a sandwich” as she kneeled down and rubbed his shoulder. She didn’t hand him some raggedy McDonald’s sandwich. It was nicely wrapped so he could store some for later.

“Thank you baby! God Bless you!” said John as he graciously took the sandwich

“God Bless you too! You take care of yourself ok?” she said staring into his eyes, something most people probably won’t do. Ut prosim.

Every morning we rush past these people and ignore them. We get angry because they’re begging. We think they should get up and get a job. We put them into a box of people we just ignore. I’m guilty of it. I’m guilty of it everyday. This woman though, she didn’t let her time and life get away from what we all should be doing. She may or may not know his story, but she took the time to learn his name and help him. I always think I’m just a poor graduate student, I can’t help anybody. I just bought a brand new car, I think I can help someone. I don’t care enough to help.

We need those people who still care.

We are an unhappy and uncaring people. We are self-involved and only empowered by our own interests. We complain about providing for our own families and gripe at our children when they behave the way children should. We complain about our jobs, but smile and collect the paycheck every two weeks. We do everything but care on a regular basis. The folks who genuinely do care are often abused and taken advantage of to where their care no longer is seen as care to others but a plan b. My mother is one of those caring people, but my brother takes advantage of it to where she will always be one of those plan b in case his plan goes wrong. If money is a little short, “hey mom I need to borrow this much” with the expectation that she will agree. My mom emailed with one those spammers who want to use your bank account to transfer money for about a month simply to pray with that person and encourage him or her. I bet that was unexpected.

We need those people who still care.

I think the people we can learn this best from are children. When we get older, we become so complex. We become so complexly stupid. Children enjoy those simple things that allows them to care. A few weeks ago I got to play with my supervisor’s kids. Aside from my nieces, I rarely see kids. We played softball, chase, boogey man, and all sorts of games. They didn’t know me from the next person, but they played with me and took time to care about me in that moment. When they went to bed, they hugged me goodnight as if I was someone regularly involved in their life. They cared about me without their own interests in mind.

We need those people who still care.

In student affairs we talk so much about actively caring and doing this and that. Do we really care? I know when I have that paper due the next day, I do not care. Simple as that, I. Do. Not. Care. My job is to care, yet when I get so involved in my own business, I do not care. This happens all the time. We need those people who still care. We need them to teach us how to care. We need something to happen to make us care. When we do care, we become trend carers. For example, everyone was all about KONY. Who talks about it now? Who still cares? We get wrapped up in trend causes and will hashtag anything, but rarely do anything to truly actively care and participate in helping. I’m guilty of it all and who knows if even after this I’ll do something to change my behavior. I guess it’s not an overnight kind of thing, but I wish I cared more.

Get You Through the Day

“Ah, I forgot my lunch this morning.”

“I very rarely eat lunch.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Well I hate buying it for one thing..”

“Oh and you hate carrying things too.”

“Yeah, so I’ll usually fill up on a good breakfast to get me through the day, but I’m usually pretty hungry by dinner.”

I overheard this conversation about 3 minutes ago as two middle-aged men gathered at the MARC exit door to Rockville station. I’m not sure if they were friends or just frequent riders. The conversation was simple, but revealed so much more about the man who was just sitting next to me in the seat too small for the both of us. It made me think about the way he makes decisions and prioritizes things in his life. When he first said he didn’t each lunch, I figured it would be followed up with some statement about being too busy because I saw him dialing away at emails on his blackberry earlier. I thought lunch was another one of those in the way steps of feeling accomplished in our to do list driven lives. His reasoning was simple really, but it’s the “to get me through the day” part that sparked my interest.

Breakfast would be his first and last meal until dinner to get him through his day. Whatever he ate that morning would have to hold him through the day because that was the decision he made from cost and comfort. Does he put extra thought into his breakfast? Does he think before pouring a mediocre sized bowl of Cheerios will this get me through my day?

What gets you through your day? I don’t mean what meals or snacks do you consume to provide that physical energy, but what gives you that spark to get through another day that could be just like the other?I know everyone in student affairs says no day is alike, but I mean really they are. We aren’t really that special. What gets you through the monotony of your fifth committee meeting where nothing seems to get done? What gets you thorough that boring one on one where you just want to through your hands up and walk out? It’s crazy to think how often people’s professional lives are eight hours of “getting through” until they can work resume their personal life or vice versa.

I’m reading this book that talks about how to live a happier life blah blah and it talks about how your work and personal life shouldn’t be separate. You should bring the same passions to your work as your do your personal. What you do for work is serving your organization and those impacted, while what you do for home is serving and providing for you family. No matter the location, it’s all service driven by some passion. If you don’t love your personal or professional or really what should be the marriage of the two, maybe think about reconsider what you’re doing to get through the day.

In a perfect world, everyone would be in their dream career with their dream lives. That may not always happen to the tee, but there are ways you can influence your life to do more than just get through the day, but actually embrace and enjoy your day. It’s always the little things that make me remember why I love what I do and who I am. It’s the little Facebook notes or emails. It’s the little laughs or moments I want to punch someone in the face. There are things that get me through the day beyond waiting for it to be over. If you can’t find this is in work, take on a new hobby or a new pet. We are charged with keeping our lives rich and fulfilled, so do something to spark your inner child and do more than just get through the day.