commuting – Yellywelly

If you follow me on Instgram (and if you don’t, please do! I’m @yellywelly), you’ll know that I more often than not story my trials and tribulations on the work commute that is the Greater Anglia service under the hashtag #girlonthetrainfeels.

I’ve been using that hashtag for about 3 or so years now. It’s has basically been my whinge board for all things related to my morning and evening commute on Greater Anglia. Sometimes it’s just short videos of my train swooshing past pretty Essex fields, and sometimes (well, okay, most of the time) it’s me complaining about the delays on the service, but sometimes I share my thoughts on the passengers I share the train with. Once, a lady got on the train from Stratford with the biggest Nemo balloon that I’d ever seen. You can guess what my caption was (something about finding Nemo…of course!).

I have an hourlong commute to work (I get on at Harwich and get off at Chelmsford) so it’s necessary to find ways to entertain myself. I normally allow my mind to float away on flights of fancy. I like to give nicknames to the people I come across on the train. I wonder about their lives or why they behave the way they do on the train. There are the train regulars like Colonel Mustard, Mr and Mrs Coughie, Lady Tosser, Cath (Kidston), Ichabod Crane…

These, of course, aren’t their real names. I just call these names because of how they dress or behave.

I wonder if y’all want to hear about them?

Yes I am writing again. And no, I didn’t go on a writing sabbatical (as is my perennial excuse for being a lazy so and so).

I just haven’t been visited by the writing muses lately and real life adulting has been keeping me busy and most days absolutely shattered. By the time I get home, I’m more than ready to go to bed. But of course, there’s still dinner to be made and eaten and dishes to be washed. Some days, I really would just like to get in, lock the door behind me, take of my shoes, put down my bag, take a shower and go to bed. I’ve neglected all forms of creative pursuits – writing, crocheting, sewing. All my creative endeavours have been put on an extended pause until I find the motivation to start working with my hands again.

I’ve been feeling very down in the dumps lately. Maybe it’s the hay fever, but I feel like I have this blanket of general dissatisfaction about everything weighing me down. I try to busy myself and just keep my head down and just keep chugging along, ticking off one task after the other. If I keep myself busy, I stop noticing the little things that make me grind my teeth in annoyance. I try to smile through everything, be kind, be helpful, be pleasant and biddable, because that’s what’s expected (and I know that it’s not good for my mental health, all this tamping down of feelings). But there are days when I just want to shout in frustration and demand that people take care of me for a change. I keep wondering whether people would notice if I disappeared. I know…dark thoughts. I’m probably just feeling a bit neglected, taken for granted and a little invisible.

I do, however, want to write more. I have a hashtag that I use a lot on my Instagram stories (please follow me — I’m @yellywelly on Instagram and Twitter) – #girlonthetrainfeels. Yes, very, very inspired by Paula Hawkins’ book The Girl On The Train, which I loved and read several times over. Because, I am, for all intents and purposes a girl on the train. I commute to work on a train. I’ve been asked by people to write about my train journeys because my Instagram stories make them laugh.

I need to get writing. What I’m afraid if is that people will think I’m mean. Because I make up names for the people that get on the same train as me – the regulars. I also wonder about them, and have observations. I don’t think I’m being mean-spirited. It’s just a bit of fun on the train whilst I’m waiting for the train to roll onto my platform so I can get off and go to work.

I wonder if people will be interested in reading my stories and musings….