As we sprinted up the last of several consecutive escalators
moving travelers from the subterranean interchange between the Gare
Montparnasse Train Station and the Paris Metro system to the elevated train platforms
serving all points west of Paris, I quickly scanned the large digital schedule
boards. My rapid glance had the goal of,
at best, discovering at which track our Rennes-bound high-speed train was
waiting or, at a minimum, gaining an update on the time. Upon acquiring the bare minimum of knowledge
sought, 7:55, my heart rate slowed a little and we were able to downshift from
a sprint to a run. “We are not going to
miss our train,” I confidently announced.
The first time the remote possibility that we might miss our train began gnawing at the back of my mind was as we were pleasantly strolling along Rue Mouffetard, vainly trying to take in all that the oldest and most sumptuous street in Paris was offering up that sun-soaked July morning. As the search for our metro station become more prolonged than expected, I realized I wasn’t exactly sure how long the trip from Place Monge to Montparnasse-Bienvenue, with its corresponding line changes, would actually take. I started to wonder whether we might actually begin the first day of our honeymoon in Paris by missing the train to Mont Saint-Michel, the one part of our trip which my Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology-holding wife was in the highest anticipation.
The first time the remote possibility that we might miss our train began gnawing at the back of my mind was as we were pleasantly strolling along Rue Mouffetard, vainly trying to take in all that the oldest and most sumptuous street in Paris was offering up that sun-soaked July morning. As the search for our metro station become more prolonged than expected, I realized I wasn’t exactly sure how long the trip from Place Monge to Montparnasse-Bienvenue, with its corresponding line changes, would actually take. I started to wonder whether we might actually begin the first day of our honeymoon in Paris by missing the train to Mont Saint-Michel, the one part of our trip which my Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology-holding wife was in the highest anticipation.
After switching from line 7 to the touristy line 6, my panic
become both visible and urgent enough that I informed my wife I was worried we
might miss our train, a train for which I’d bought non-transferable tickets
months in advance, so as to save a couple hundred euro. The bewildering disappointment which
immediately crossed her face was painful to observe, knowing it was my
nonchalant approach to our morning commute which had placed us in this
stressful situation. The nonchalance
transformed into desperate intensity as we exited the subway and began pushing, spinning and dodging our way
through what felt like a mile’s length of crowded, twisting underground
corridors which would eventually spill out at the above mentioned escalators.
It’s important to note that I’d never missed a train. Not during the year of living in Paris nor the semester of taking college students all around Europe. I’d been close, for sure, often too close for comfort. The closest was that day in Budapest in which our group was scheduled to end the day of sightseeing by sleeping on an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania. For some reason, likely because we’d caught a different train at a similar time, I’d had it in my mind we were supposed to board that train at 9 PM. As we were casually riding on the metro to another site, all of our luggage safely stored at our hostel, my conscious thought drug from my memory the realization that our overnight train was actually scheduled to leave not at 9 PM but rather 7 PM.. Fortunately, we still had plenty of time to board that train. Unfortunately, the two of our group members who weren’t with us were still operating under the 9 PM time schedule and were unreachable due to our spotty cell service. Fortunately, we never had to implement the plan in which the rest of the group went ahead as scheduled while I stayed behind with remaining two students, taking the next day’s night train, because they had both randomly checked messages in a wifi-equiped cafĂ©, prompting them to return to the hostel with enough time to board the train with the rest of the group. Other than Dawson throwing up on our luggage in the middle of the night, the rest of our train ride to Romania was uneventful. Now the bedbugs we picked up while in Romania certainly created some uncomfortable complications. That’s, however, a whole different story…
It’s important to note that I’d never missed a train. Not during the year of living in Paris nor the semester of taking college students all around Europe. I’d been close, for sure, often too close for comfort. The closest was that day in Budapest in which our group was scheduled to end the day of sightseeing by sleeping on an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania. For some reason, likely because we’d caught a different train at a similar time, I’d had it in my mind we were supposed to board that train at 9 PM. As we were casually riding on the metro to another site, all of our luggage safely stored at our hostel, my conscious thought drug from my memory the realization that our overnight train was actually scheduled to leave not at 9 PM but rather 7 PM.. Fortunately, we still had plenty of time to board that train. Unfortunately, the two of our group members who weren’t with us were still operating under the 9 PM time schedule and were unreachable due to our spotty cell service. Fortunately, we never had to implement the plan in which the rest of the group went ahead as scheduled while I stayed behind with remaining two students, taking the next day’s night train, because they had both randomly checked messages in a wifi-equiped cafĂ©, prompting them to return to the hostel with enough time to board the train with the rest of the group. Other than Dawson throwing up on our luggage in the middle of the night, the rest of our train ride to Romania was uneventful. Now the bedbugs we picked up while in Romania certainly created some uncomfortable complications. That’s, however, a whole different story…
While you could argue I lucked out that day in Budapest, as
we were sprinting up the Gare Montparnasse escalator, I was still the owner of
an unblemished train-catching record.
Upon seeing we still had five minutes before our train left the station,
I breathed a sigh of relief and wondered whether this story would top the
Budapest story in the list of train near-misses. As the title of this blog entry foreshadows,
this day would end by topping the short-list of train actual-misses.
Those five minutes remaining before our train’s scheduled
departure were sufficient for locating and arriving at the correct track. The surprise kick-in-the-gut, however occurred when
the SNCF employee stationed at the track’s entrance explained to us, while
simultaneously closing the gate, that the high-speed TGV trains close their
doors to passengers two minutes before their scheduled departure. She then directed us toward the ticketing
office where we could, at a premium price, purchase tickets for the next TGV
train which would take us to Rennes, where we could hop on a shuttle to Mont
Saint-Michel.
We
bought the tickets. We arrived only an
hour later than the original plan. We
had a great day walking around the beach and the medieval abbey. My wife didn’t hold my lack of thoughtful preparation
against me. Sarah also experienced her
first encounter with the reason one always leaves margin for the unexpected in their
schedule and budget when travelling internationally; the unexpected is guaranteed
to occur in one form or another. Missing
a train scheduled three months in advance, though is something I never thought
would actually happen to me. I had
worked too long to organize our trip and I am too savvy of an international traveler
to make such an obvious mistake.
I’ve been mulling over this blog entry for months, stuck on how to seamlessly morph the above story into the larger point of this post. Since I still haven’t been able to land the transition I’m going to have to make do with [insert choppy transition here].
As is quite well documented on this blog, several years ago I experienced something I never thought would happen to me, a divorce resulting from the death of a marriage. Sarah has experienced the same thing as well. Though this likely doesn’t make us unique among those who have gone through a divorce, neither of us had any thought that our first marriages would end by any means other than death. That is, after all, the vow we both made and the commitment which our families have modeled for us. I’m not completely sure how much of a role the mindset of “this could never happen to us” actually played in our respective divorces but I’m confident it was a contributing factor. Similar to how the first tiny and almost insignificant moment of pre-panic, “we might not make our train” entered my mind while walking along Rue Mouffetard that first morning of our honeymoon, there was a similar moment during my previous marriage in which the wildly fearful thought of “we might not make it” first burrowed into the back of my mind. I’m not sure whether the eventually divorce could’ve been avoided by that point but I’m confident I should’ve given stronger consideration to the fear which was likely trying to prevent shipwreck of a marriage which had entered some dangerous waters.
As is also quite well documented on this blog, I’ve survived that unexpected life event and have come out much stronger on the other side. I’m finally a few months away from fulfilling a goal I’ve had for the better part of a decade (more on that in a different post). A little over a year after abruptly mashing them together into a new blended family, our kids are demonstrating the comfort, acceptance and significance that comes from the (relatively) healthy family unit Sarah and I have worked incredibly hard to foster. Last, and possibly the opposite of least, Sarah and I are experiencing a unity and satisfaction in our marriage that neither of us dared dream was even a possibility just a few years ago. It’s in no way an oversell to share that I’ve never been in as good of a place in my life as I am right now. Neither is it an overstatement to claim that I’ve done a LOT of work to get to this place. On the flip side, admitting that I might have lucked into snagging an incredible life partner who is a tad bit out of my league could surely be deemed an understatement.
For this reason, it’s easy to understand why I’m committed to never again missing the train. The false confidence of “it could never happen to us” will be thoroughly unwelcome in our marriage. Experience has provided some painful lessons regarding what’s worthfighting about having fair but passionate debates
about and what needs to be immediately dropped.
Our previous marriages have revealed the heart-wrenching reality of where
a relationship could find itself if foundational aspects of what makes a
marriage work are ignored or taken for granted.
We are currently experiencing the relational ride of our lives but we
are painfully aware of the need to diligently stay on schedule because we’ve
missed the train in the past.
In order to ride this metaphor to the end of the line, I’ll wrap up this post by reluctantly detailing how the day-trip to Mont Saint Michel which kicked off our honeymoon ended. Due to my misreading of the shuttle schedule, we missed our return train to Paris. So yeah, I was two for two in missing trains that day. While the second mistake didn’t cost us as much money as the morning’s mishap, thanks in part to a friendly family from Minnesota who gave us two unused shuttle tickets, we did end up returning to Paris a couple hours later than planned, causing us to postpone the planned boat ride on the Seine to a different evening. Apparently, it’s just as dangerous to assume it could never happen in the first place as to assume it could never happen a second time. By now, I think those of you following along at home can make your own metaphorical connection. I think you can also understand why, for the rest of the trip, my wife had me double-check and, occasionally triple-check, our remaining train schedule and flight schedule and cabaret show time and photo-shoot schedule and…. Fortunately, we were on time for everything else during the remainder of our honeymoon. Hopefully, the rest of our honeymoon established a life-long trend.
I’ve been mulling over this blog entry for months, stuck on how to seamlessly morph the above story into the larger point of this post. Since I still haven’t been able to land the transition I’m going to have to make do with [insert choppy transition here].
As is quite well documented on this blog, several years ago I experienced something I never thought would happen to me, a divorce resulting from the death of a marriage. Sarah has experienced the same thing as well. Though this likely doesn’t make us unique among those who have gone through a divorce, neither of us had any thought that our first marriages would end by any means other than death. That is, after all, the vow we both made and the commitment which our families have modeled for us. I’m not completely sure how much of a role the mindset of “this could never happen to us” actually played in our respective divorces but I’m confident it was a contributing factor. Similar to how the first tiny and almost insignificant moment of pre-panic, “we might not make our train” entered my mind while walking along Rue Mouffetard that first morning of our honeymoon, there was a similar moment during my previous marriage in which the wildly fearful thought of “we might not make it” first burrowed into the back of my mind. I’m not sure whether the eventually divorce could’ve been avoided by that point but I’m confident I should’ve given stronger consideration to the fear which was likely trying to prevent shipwreck of a marriage which had entered some dangerous waters.
As is also quite well documented on this blog, I’ve survived that unexpected life event and have come out much stronger on the other side. I’m finally a few months away from fulfilling a goal I’ve had for the better part of a decade (more on that in a different post). A little over a year after abruptly mashing them together into a new blended family, our kids are demonstrating the comfort, acceptance and significance that comes from the (relatively) healthy family unit Sarah and I have worked incredibly hard to foster. Last, and possibly the opposite of least, Sarah and I are experiencing a unity and satisfaction in our marriage that neither of us dared dream was even a possibility just a few years ago. It’s in no way an oversell to share that I’ve never been in as good of a place in my life as I am right now. Neither is it an overstatement to claim that I’ve done a LOT of work to get to this place. On the flip side, admitting that I might have lucked into snagging an incredible life partner who is a tad bit out of my league could surely be deemed an understatement.
For this reason, it’s easy to understand why I’m committed to never again missing the train. The false confidence of “it could never happen to us” will be thoroughly unwelcome in our marriage. Experience has provided some painful lessons regarding what’s worth
In order to ride this metaphor to the end of the line, I’ll wrap up this post by reluctantly detailing how the day-trip to Mont Saint Michel which kicked off our honeymoon ended. Due to my misreading of the shuttle schedule, we missed our return train to Paris. So yeah, I was two for two in missing trains that day. While the second mistake didn’t cost us as much money as the morning’s mishap, thanks in part to a friendly family from Minnesota who gave us two unused shuttle tickets, we did end up returning to Paris a couple hours later than planned, causing us to postpone the planned boat ride on the Seine to a different evening. Apparently, it’s just as dangerous to assume it could never happen in the first place as to assume it could never happen a second time. By now, I think those of you following along at home can make your own metaphorical connection. I think you can also understand why, for the rest of the trip, my wife had me double-check and, occasionally triple-check, our remaining train schedule and flight schedule and cabaret show time and photo-shoot schedule and…. Fortunately, we were on time for everything else during the remainder of our honeymoon. Hopefully, the rest of our honeymoon established a life-long trend.
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