Life Is The Hardest Commute Of All
You know that moment when, having been jammed up against the door in a crowded car, you sense your station approaching and pivot to face front and suddenly see yourself in the harsh, unflattering reflection of the train window and are forced to confront all that you are, the sad lump of skin and meat that you carry with you each day and are mostly successful at not thinking too much about? That near-simultaneous feeling of disgust (“Oh, God, you”) and resignation (“I guess this is what I’ve got left to work with from now on”) and the wearying comprehension that the difference between who you think you are and who you’re really hauling around in the eyes of everyone else can be plotted on a graph to express the number of days you have left in this world? You don’t? Liar. Anyway, there oughta be a German word for that! I mean, there probably already is, but I mean something a little more specific than “leben.”