A Dilated Journey and Youth

“I’m still young,” I tell myself, plead with myself. Twenty-eight years has left that stain on my soul. I am no longer the new kid on the block, and, somehow, bragging that most of my friends are older doesn’t sound so cool when most of them are …twenty-nine. When he walked onto the train, I knew immediately that in spite of our age difference — probably just eleven or twelve years – we had something in common, youth. Not the youth that I saw in him – eagerly chatting away the ride on his cell phone—but a more profound, American Youth.

The Amtrak to Boston had been delayed out of New York. And though the extra thirty-five minutes on top of the posted ten minute delay had been annoying, they were nothing compared to the scheduled five o’clock train, which had been delayed three and a half hours. It was a Sunday, and pulling out of Penn Station on a rainy summer night felt freeing somehow, finally. The train was crammed. I sat next to a thirty-something who [...]

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