A Day in the Life

Let’s say for instance that you’re me.

You intended to live a wild eighteenth year, filled to the brim with consequence-free debauchery and incompetence. You ended your high school career ready to break all the rules. You were going to try everything. You were going to have stories that would make your children clutch their pearls in the future.

Instead, you wake up every morning to a mindful meditation app that you like to listen to because it clears your mind and you find the woman’s voice soothing.You take an all-women literature class, that is basically an abstract book club, in which you read Jane Austen and you actually like reading Jane Austen. One of the ways you relax now is by watching gritty shows on Netflix, like “Mindhunter” and then going on Facebook to see what other people think about it. You are one step away from eating Special K in the morning because you want a convenient and nutritious breakfast. Now, among everything else you have to do, you have to schedule an exorcism to free yourself of the forty year old woman that has clearly possessed you.

Meanwhile, everybody is making out with each other and you suddenly realize that it is not a coincidence that everyone got sick at the same time. Eating each other’s faces off with Hannibal Lecter-like precision, is how other students get their kicks. You get yours from ordering food off Grubhub and Postmates so that you don’t have to go out to eat, and you look forward to the weekend so that you can take trips into the city. People around you get drunk off Fireball and Peach Schnapps even though both of those things taste like cleaning polish. You go to parties and people around you are drinking beer that is probably just 90% foam and water, but they are drinking it like it is an antidote to poison. Drunk girls at parties touch your hair and tell you that you are beautiful, but then their memories lapse like a goldfish and they don’t remember any of that. You are so much more docile in comparison to them, that you wonder if you are being slipped antidepressants without knowing it.

Although sometimes, your wild side- because you really do have one- comes out, and you dance on top of two tables and you body surf a crowd while dressed like a heroin-chic supermodel from the 90s. It was a decades-themed party and you always dress like a grungy, underfed 90s model for all decades-themed events, because, aside from being hot and an underrated costume choice, you look like you could be one. Other times you and your friends- because you really do have them- get kicked out of a party, because, in hindsight, that party was most likely being thrown by the Black Student Union and you weren’t invited.

Then, you arrive at this week.

The protein bars that you live off of are officially gone. You take vitamins so that you can feel alert in the morning. You OD on angry feminism in your dorm room at 2 am and that is one of the highlights of your night. You have since started rewatching “The Mentalist” because it’s another crime procedural and you might be in love with Simon Baker, so you and your mother like to discuss it.

And you know what: it doesn’t matter at all.

You wanna listen to the depressed and angsty playlist you made on Spotify? Go for it. Who’s going to know what you’re listening to? You wanna watch clips from “Legally Blonde” during your study breaks so that you feel motivated to finish your work? Do it. You will come off that high feeling like you can do anything. You wanna listen to inspiring Tom Petty songs on your way to classes that you are barely staying afloat in? Also doable. The trick is to live with intention, by being invested in whatever it is you choose to do to get you through the day. No judgement required.