The Lucky Ones

I jumped on the metro in the morning, on my way to work, headphones in my ears, staring blankly in front of me as I clung to the bar I stood next to. I was standing with people squeezed in all around me, but I was in my own world, the soundtrack to my day playing in surround sound through my brain.

My favorite part about my commute from residential Arlington to Capitol Hill is when we cross the Potomac River. The Metro is an underground subway of sorts, but I get to enjoy the rare reprieve from the tunnel tracks when we cross the bridge over the River. We burst out into the brilliant morning sunshine, particularly radiant after the darkness of the underground, and exceptional as it pulls my eye to the Washington Monument which we're speeding toward, with the rest of the monuments and the Capitol all waiting to peek out from behind each other and greet me in turn before I go back into the dark abyss.

Today, as I stood on the metro, plummeting through the dark, I decided to switch up my daily soundtrack a bit. I turned on Brendan James's "The Lucky Ones." It was a free song from Amazon one day, and I remembered liking it, but I hadn't listened to it in a while, so I couldn't remember why.

As we chugged out of the tunnel into the stunning sunlight and gorgeous scenery, I heard the Brendan sing:

On the edge of a moment,
In the land that we love,
In the time that our best has to be good enough,
Like all those before us, we start out alone,
We race from our schoolyards, into the unknown
City lights, as far as the eye can see,
You and I, we will live differently

I was struck by the awesome timing of what I was hearing and what I was seeing. I might as well have been in a movie, the place and song were so perfect for each other. My fellow passengers in the mornings are luckily rather tired and droopy, sleeping or looking down, so no one witnessed me smile like an idiot, silently laughing at the beauty of my experience. And then I heard Brendan continue:

With our hearts in our hands,
Like loaded guns,
We're taking a chance,
We're the lucky ones,
This moment is yours,
This moment is mine,
And we're gonna be fine.
 
And I thought, "I really am a lucky one. I'm lucky to be here, to get to ride into work each morning with such a great view, to savor the beauty of the East coast's Autumn, to participate in the dealings of a great nation, to walk the streets of a big city that often acts like a small city. And I really do think I'm gonna be fine."

I almost laughed out loud at the contentedness that had sweeped over me, a girl who minutes before had been as dull and lifeless as her neighbors on the train. And now, here I was, conspiring with Brendan James to live differently, confident that despite whatever lies ahead of me, I'm taking this moment I have and I'm going to really live with purpose and joy.

And with the whisper of a smile still lingering on my lips, the train plunged back into the darkness.