For the last two years of my education, I’ve been taking the train from Long Island into Manhattan for school. At the moment, it felt expensive and time consuming to make that journey every morning and night. But whatever I spent on the train, I’ve saved with rent. So it turned out not too bad.
What was interesting to me was their monthly tickets, which were color coded for each month of the year. When I bought my first ticket, my immediate thought was how neat it would be to collect all of my tickets over the next 4 years and to see what it would look to have a neat arrangement of pastel colors that represented my entire time in graduate school. Every peak and every valley would be encapsulated in a neat ring of thin paper. And so I collected them. [Excluding the summer months.]
Unfortunately, my time in New York ground to a halt unexpectedly early. Instead of a collage that celebrated my journey into professional adulthood, I have 18 cards that represent my inability to see something through to the end. For the past few months, I’ve debated on whether or not I even wanted to take this picture because of what I deemed to be a major “failure” and setback in my life. But over the same few months, I’ve overcome the negative thinking by taking steps and building towards a new future. This “failure” of mine is just a blip in the radar; a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of life.
If you’re reading this post, I am either moving to/currently living in Boston, Massachusetts. Here is where I restart with a clean slate and finish the race that I have started already.
Here’s to new beginnings in new places.
Andy Chen Photography 