Endless Numbered Days

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days ~ Iron & Wine

It is ironic that the best lessons about living, about what is most important and who to hold close to your chest, come from the wisdom of those who are dying. But we are all dying, some just feel it more acutely than others. Maybe that is why I have been reading more lately, seeking some trinkets of wisdom about life and how to live in the thoughts of those who had so precious limited time left. In Unwinding of a Miracle, Julie Yip Williams spends much of her thoughts while living with metastatic colon cancer reflecting on when she was happiest (during her solo travels, witnessing the sublime elegance of nature) and those whom she will miss the most in this world (her partner, children, family and friends). Ultimately Julie realizes that dying is a solitary affair; no one else, no matter how they may want to ease the burden, will understand what she is going through.

Living and dying are two sides of the same coin, opposite points of the same circle, and living, I think, is ultimately a solitary affair as well. Reading Julie’s book has come at a time where I, at the cusp of graduating and thinking about what is to come, am all the more aware of the boundlessness of the future. In many ways I feel more grounded in who I am, and I see this as the growth I have experienced in the past four years. But in other ways I feel untethered to anything, anxious that I am stagnating. I don’t think this is an individual feeling at all; many of my graduating friends have expressed this as well. But I think part of this feeling stems from comparison to those around us; people who seem to have already achieved more, are certain of their values, and found the secrets to personal fulfillment already in their short lives. For me, I worry that I will not find this type of peace with myself until much later. But I know that only I can find this, only I can draft the conditions of how I choose to live. And I should not feel compelled to be swayed by the voices of those who are not me. 

People say that the older you get, the faster days seem to go by. Senior year, filled with lasts, certainly has felt like it has drifted by faster than my freshman year, which had unfolded with firsts. In many ways this has been my favorite year; I have found many people who I believe are MY people, people who I could spend hours and hours talking and laughing with. I have found real love, again. Most weeks are happy despite the stress of work and test prep. But through the haze of these days, there is a rooted desire below to understand as well as I can in the time I have left in college how I want to live. That is perhaps the most important question we have to ask ourselves, and ultimately the truest measure we are judged by.