Our theme for the month of October is “the elements.”
I’m thinking about the elements of my life, the trappings and tickboxes, the charts and forms and documentation that prove my existence. And I’m thinking about how much I feel like Frankenstein’s monster, some days—pieced together, a compilation of chemicals without the animation that makes a life. I think so much about what makes a human, and what makes a good one. I think so much about what I’m missing.
I’m twenty-three and I spend most of my time alone on the bus and a lot of that time worrying about the future. Every day I chase down the 51 and think, is this my life? Is this real and true? Do I belong here? Does it matter? And every day as I wait for the shuttle I pull out my phone and check the time and check my messages as if one more swipe through my friends’ photos will conjure their presence.
I’ve been asking those friends for a lot of affirmation lately, the “tell me why you love me” kind of texts. Last week my wise and patient boyfriend told me again that I’m smart and capable and I will be fine. And then he said that my graduate study is a privilege. I was suddenly aware that I had ceased to think of my life as a gift.
I think so much about what I’m missing.
It’ll be almost seventy degrees today in Boston, and it’s sunny and breezy and the air smells like soil and leaves. Today, I will carry a full backpack of thick books to my bus stop and find a seat behind a chatty woman who loves Green Day and needs more girl friends who are into metal, or across from the niece and friend of a woman who buried the wrong son, or a few rows back from a quiet businessman who slips a small bottle of Jack Daniels out of his briefcase when the bus slows at a traffic light. Today, I will trot across campus past nineteen-year-olds dressed for all kinds of weather we’re not having, who are on the phone with their moms or making weekend plans or shyly holding someone’s hand for the first time. I will find a seat in class next to people I’m coming to call friends, and I will make faces to Greg across the room when I’m confused and I will check Jess’s notes when I missed something important and I will be impressed and excited by the insights of my classmates and afterward, we will laugh together, and maybe go out for a beer.
Today, I will sit at Reservoir station in the dark in the inevitable gap between shuttle drop-off and the arrival of the 51, and I will think, is this my life? Is this real and true? Do I belong here? Does it matter? And I will tell myself again: yes, yes, yes, yes.
And tomorrow, perhaps, I will feel again like Frankenstein’s monster. I have a permanent and local address, and a health insurance number, and an EagleID, and a Michigan driver’s license, and passwords and profiles and accounts on a dozen websites, and those necessary pieces are not what makes a life. Most days, I’m not sure what makes a life, what makes a human, what makes a good one. I feel small beside all the stories swirling about my bus route and my path across campus. I feel lost in the documents that prove my existence but don’t make me real. But I wake up every morning to a messy and complicated and absurd and lonely gift. I think far too much about what I’m missing.
Is this my life? Is this real and true? Do I belong here? Does it matter?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Katie is a doctoral student in English and education at the University of Michigan. She loves the New York Times crossword puzzle, advice columns, oceans, and dogs of all kinds.
