It's a Glorious Life Isn't It?: Waiting To Go Beyond the Gates-Talisman Story

I try never to say "hate," but I will say I very much dislike lines. Not because of the waiting. The waiting I'm used to. It's the people. "It's a glorious life isn't it?" as my Dad used to say. Not that I hate people, either. It's just this awkward social space. I'm standing in a line that has at least four times the number of people than in my home village, but no one talks. We all just wait for one of the guards to say, "Next!". Actually, I have to figure out how to explain all the junk in my backpack.
"Hey!" A young boy's voice called out right next to me. "What's that weird arrow you got there?" 
"Oh! Um..." I take the arrow strapped to the side of my quiver and squat to the boy's level. "This guy?".
"Yeah. What's up with all the lines?" he said, eying the etched lines along the circumference of the shaft. One line per inch, all the way up the shaft.
"It was a tradition in my home village. When you were fourteen, you made the arrow. You would then leave the main village to live in one of the hunting lodges for a season."
"Hunting lodge?" The boy's face was perplexed. I'm still having trouble getting the hang of city vocabulary. Let me try again.
"Our village's main income was hunting. You had the main village, with a dozen or so houses, then the hunting lodges, which were much closer to the game. So groups of villagers would go to these lodges, hunt for about a month, then return to the village with the food and pelts. For each notch in the arrow, you were tending to the lodge for a season."
"What did you do?"
"Well, we made sure the lodge was in good repair, that we knew where the packs of the game were, all that kind of stuff."
"Sounds kinda boring." He said, uninterested. I put my hand on his shoulder and locked eyes with him.
"Kid, I was never happier in my life than when I was tending those lodges. My life was clear. I had a sense of purpose. I knew exactly what to do and when to do it, side by side with mother nature." Oh no. There was that pit in my stomach again—that emptiness.
"Are you alright miss?" Oh no, it must have shown. I shook my face and regained my composure.
"Sorry, I probably didn't describe it well, but when you get to see the sun set over a clear lake at the end of a long day, it felt good."
"Huh" 
"Give it a shot sometime, mother nature has a lot to enjoy."
"Why aren't you doing it now then?" Man, kids are ruthless; he kept that pit right open.
"NEXT!" The Guard called. I sheathed my arrow and ruffled the boy's hair.
"I guess this is goodbye. I had fun talking to you." I said.
"Goodbye!" The kid said as I walked towards the towering stone city walls. Hundreds of voices beckoned me from within. It's a glorious life, isn't it, Dad?