Just another day commuting to Syosset. I got on the train at Penn Station and found a seat — one of those backward-facing ones, looking out toward where I would come from.
Once I settled in, something about it felt slow and intimate.
As if my body was in sync with something I hadn’t noticed before—
the quiet act of looking back.
As the train moved forward, the city began to drift behind me—
buildings, streets, fire escapes—
all slipping slowly into the distance.
But for once, I wasn’t rushing to hold onto anything.
I just watched.
Strangely, the farther I moved from things,
the more clearly I could see them.
Not as noise or blurs,
but as stories—
soft, unfinished,
full of lives I’ll never know,
yet somehow felt connected to.
My eyes weren’t busy this time.
I wasn’t scanning, chasing, collecting.
I let them rest—
on one rooftop, one flickering light—
and as the train pulled away,
the world around that single point
began to open like a breath.
Stillness made the view wider.
It’s funny how sometimes you see more
when you stop trying to see everything.
When I face the same direction as the train,
I feel the thrill—
the motion, the urgency,
that sense of moving forward.
Anticipation. Excitement.
And I love it.
But it can also make me anxious,
like life is sprinting past
and I’m just barely holding on.
Facing backwards, though…
it felt peaceful.
Like watching things leave
without them being torn away.
There was no panic. No anxiety.
Just a soft parting.
Like life whispering to my heart,
“You can let go now.
You don’t have to carry everything.”
It made me think about people.
How some of them drift away too—
quietly, over time.
And I’ve always found that kind of goodbye the hardest—
when someone just disappears.
But maybe,
if I could see them slowly becoming smaller,
fading softly instead of vanishing all at once,
maybe it would hurt a little less.
Yes, it would still hurt
to know that they’re getting further away with time—
but I might appreciate their life, their presence, even more.
I try to live forward—I really do.
But looking back,
when I’m not running from it,
has its own strange, aching beauty.
When I let my mind rewind gently,
I remember the smallest things:
the way someone laughed with their whole face,
the warmth of sunlight on a sidewalk I’ve walked a hundred times,
the feeling of a moment
before I knew it would become a memory.
There’s comfort in not always racing toward what’s next.
In just watching where you’ve been,
and letting it slip away with grace.
It reminds me—
I’m not always the one steering.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe I don’t always have to be moving forward
to be moving “meaningfully.”
Maybe sometimes,
sitting still as the world moves behind me
is exactly what I need.
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