And On The Subway We Feel Like Strangers, But We’re All In This Together

It’s amazing how everything changes. Portions of my life that I swore I would never forget are already fading, blurring together into an ambiguous haze of memory. Sometimes it feels as though my life has just been one long, continuous day. I used to spend so much time wishing I could return to the person I was in high school, wishing I could avoid ever having to move on, but everything changes. I can barely remember who that person was, or how she differed from the person I am now. I know in my heart that I have changed, but I can’t see it anymore, I can’t define it. It’s such an odd sensation to begin looking at life like an adult.

I’ve been noticing it in movies and music especially. Songs that a year ago held no meaning suddenly seem as though they were written just for me. I find myself so aware of instances in movies where the director has captured all of human suffering in a three second shot of a pair of scissors. For the first time, the grown up world seems to make sense to me. I see high school students and am struck with how young they look, but moreover, how much older we must look. We can’t watch our own lives from afar, but if we could, I think we’d find that we’ve entered the next stage. This is part two of the story of our lives.

I find myself watching adults more than I ever used to, thinking about what stage of their lives they’re in. I think a lot about how they look back on their lives, what they do and don’t remember. At the time, everything seems important and unforgettable, but we do forget. No one can remember every detail about their life so far. At twenty years I’m already forgetting what it felt like at fifteen. There’s no way to save the former version of yourself to compare and contrast to who you are currently. It makes it difficult to measure progression. I wonder if the people I’m watching are standing there thinking about their personal growth. Maybe their heads are filled with thoughts of who they are, who they were, who they could have been had things gone differently. Life is filled with so much wonder.

But we’re all in this together, as my current favorite Ben Lee song goes. We spend so much time comparing ourselves and fighting each other and getting wrapped up in our own drama, that we tend to forget that we are not alone. Yes, we are individuals with our own personal thoughts and experiences, but in essence, we’re all just people trying to get through life one day at a time. It may feel as though no one could possibly understand you, but someone does. It’s comforting to know the biggest support group we have is the human race, and that we can depend on them to struggle with us. We all ultimately have the same beginning and ending. We all want to be happy and loved, whether we admit it or not. We all feel the beauty and pain and bewilderment of life. We’re the same really, you and I. We’re each just one of many.

I don’t mean to rob us of our individuality and importance, but when it comes down to it, most of us probably won’t be remembered in hundreds of years and all of our similarities and differences won’t mean anything. We all have the same fate. In some strange way, it’s freeing to know that it really doesn’t matter. All of the mistakes and problems and drama in our lives won’t mean a goddamn thing when we’re lying in our graves. Of course life, in all of it’s glory and heartache, is the most precious gift we will ever be given. I don’t mean to adorn death or demean life. I’m just trying to say that we’re not as alone as we’d sometimes like to believe we are. We’re not as misunderstood. Someday we will all be dead and gone, but for now we are alive, and we’re all in this together.