Real-world reflections

It is a miraculously beautiful morning in New York, one of those rare days when I feel like I might know what I'm doing. I am actually ahead of schedule as I leave my new apartment. For once, I am actually able to find my keys. Choosing an outfit took less than 20 minutes. I have not forgotten to wear earrings, and I have my MetroCard. The train I take to midtown Manhattan is already in the station when I dash down the steps in four-inch heels. Instead of landing on my face, I slip through the closing doors and find one seat left, as though it knew I were coming and held my place. Then, with a sigh and a slightly self-satisfied smile, I take out the novel I am reading and let it lure me into its center and hold me there, fully, willingly, prisoner to its prose. It is only when I pause a half hour later to come up for air that I notice the sign at the stop that the train is just leaving. Roosevelt Ave.-Jackson Heights, Queens.

Sadly, this is not the first time this has happened. I have a tendency to nod off, my time off from work having made 9:30 a.m. seem painfully early. My naps on the subway have brought me to far corners of the city — as have my apartment searches. (Picture a blond in a white lace dress wandering around Bed-Stuy, armed only with her laptop.) But this is the way things go these days.

Of course, I could blame this morning's incident on the book, which is actually a galley I am reading for work. I have a fantastic job. After spending the five months after graduation doing a little freelance writing and a lot of wallowing in my angst about the future, I decided to seek employment. Somehow, within two weeks time, I had convinced the culture editor of a magazine with a circulation of over a million to give me many a Princeton English major's dream job. Consequently, I have the privilege, each day, of essentially proxing my way into a pristine tower where I have access to as much free bottled water as I can drink, my very own subscription to the London Review of Books for research purposes and unlimited access to books months before they come out. They even let me write sometimes.

I often wonder how I got so lucky, and other times, I feel trapped. Because here's the thing about the dream job: I am bad at it. Really bad. I didn't realize that my short-term memory had dwindled to approximately a second. I am awkward on the phone, especially with public relations representatives. I often berate myself for this, but really, I see that I'm holding back. I wasn't that sorry to have been transported to the outer boroughs or to the center of a novel, partly because I had spare time, but partly because I am avoiding the sensation that this is it, my life. It's begun, the hourglass has turned. Someone, somewhere, is measuring my success. But what if I don't want to be measured? What if I want success that is immeasurable?

When I'm in this sort of mood, the subway is the best place to escape. Riding among thousands of New Yorkers — the Latino man with his wife sleeping on his shoulder, the sharp-tongued teenage girls with rhinestones on the pockets of their jeans, the wet-behind-the-ears investment bankers with whom I probably share an acquaintance — reminds me of how different life could be, if I wanted it. I see ads for a correspondence course in court journalism and briefly, strongly, consider at least checking it out. I trace the nether regions of the subway system on the map above my seat and remind myself that I do have the option of dying my hair brown, buying some borscht-colored lipstick, and applying to be a waitress in Brighton Beach.

Another half hour later, I am walking through the glass atrium of my building. Surrounded by the familiarity of the elevator, the buzz of a fellow passenger's Treo buzzing, the faint melody from another's iPod, I try to psyche myself up for a day full of small decisions — assess, act, move on — and envy that breed of people for whom this comes easily, who seem never to look back. Because if you tend to muse and fret, if you want to know that it will all work out before you get started, well, you sometimes find yourself in Queens. Margaret Johnson '05 is a writer living in New York City. She can be reached at mwjohnso@alumni.princeton.edu.