Age 4: In one of my earliest memories, i am terrified of the noise from the diesel engines in Heuston Station.
Age 6: Santa brings me a clockwork Thomas the tank engine. The tracks are difficult to put together. When fully built, the track is an oval. This takes me forever to build, and the fun of running Thomas in an endless oval is limited.
Age 7: We move to Paris. I spend a summer carrying my brother’s buggy up and down the stairs of the Metro. I am expert at navigating the metro map. The smell of the metro in summer will stay with me for my life. Other children will associate the smell of the seaside, or of baking with their childhood. I will carry the smell of diesel, stale air and urine. The memories will be no less loving and pleasant.
Age 8: For Christmas, I receive an electric train set. This has junctions, and a road crossing. The barriers of the road crossing raise and lower automatically as the train passes. The train comes with a cargo load reflecting France’s active heavy manufacturing sector. There are no trains of this scale in Ireland.
Age 10: We have moved back to Ireland. There are no stations near us. The electric train set is broken.
Age 12: I am going to secondary school. I take the train from the recently opened Castleknock station to Connolly station in the morning. There is a sweetshop beside the ticket office. An 8 square bar of Dairy milk is 35p. I am a fat adult. I believe it is linked to the number of 35ps I was able to gather at this age.
Age 15: A friend and I take the Dart to the other side of the city. We are going out with two best friends. We travel to Dun Laoghaire, and watch Romeo and Juliet in one of their parents basements. I smoke John Player Blue cigarettes, and so do they.
Age 16: I am in a folk group. We take the train to Cork the day of the Omagh Bombings. We are travelling to a church-organised music camp. We are rowdy, and are sneaking warm cans of Budweiser. My friend is playing the Wolfe Tones, loud. A man tells us to shut up. We haven’t heard about the bombings, and we’re taken aback by his tone. We tell him to fuck off.
Age 18: I take the train to DCU on the first day of college. I spend the journey picking the CD I want to have in my Discman in case someone asks. I settle on ‘Grace’ by Jeff Buckley. No one asks. It’s still a solid selection.
Age 20: At Clontarf Road dart station, I strike up a conversation with a colleague from my tech support job. We become very close friends, and remain so to this day. I cannot remember any of what we talked about that day, although I remember we waited there longer than it would have taken to walk to town.
Age 22: I am commuting daily by train to the centre of town, where I am doing a masters in DIT. It’s Christmas, and I have bought an iPod. I am financially independent, thanks to a stock grant. I am enjoying my masters. This is my first taste of adulthood.
Age 23: I travel around the world with friends. We spend 6 days on a train, travelling from Moscow to Beijing. Laura describes this in more detail. I have seen a lot of birch trees, and drank a lot of cheap vodka.
Age 24: I take a Dart to a recruitment event in Ballsbridge. This is for a large international management consultancy. On the train, I take out my tongue piercing. I will never replace it. I put it in my suit jacket pocket. This feels like crossing a threshold.
Age 28: My office is next to the train station. I drive to the train station. I walk less than 100 steps in a day. I get into my car at the end of the day, and spend five minutes visualising myself step-by-step leaving work. I am fat and unhappy.
Age 30: I am on the Caltrain, from Palo Alto to San Francisco. I am alone, and lost in the world. I hate the job that has brought me here, and I cannot go back. I will go back, and eventually my role will change.
Age 31: My wife lives three and a half minutes walk from Tooting Broadway tube station. When I stay with her, I leave her shared house at 7:50. I generally get a seat, and read my book, or stare at posters for Musicals we won’t go to.
Age 32: It takes me 15 minutes by train to get into town. Every morning, I walk across the Samuel Beckett bridge. The sun shines on the water, and reflects the start of each day. One morning, I have to write a Thing a Week about ‘something that annoys you’. I cannot think of anything.
