Transitory Space
Reflecting on my past and facing my future.
There is an intersection on Houston, just off Clinton Street. The crosswalk is long, with cars coming from every which way. I do not get intimidated by New York streets, but this is my one exception, mainly because there have been a few hit-and-runs on the South East corner. Generally speaking, the traffic lights of New York are comical. It seems that as soon as the white figure pops up telling you to cross, you have a matter of seconds before the countdown begins—fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, flashing aggressively as if to mock you—not even the light has the time nor the patience for you. Often I can only make it to the street's median, stranded for another twenty seconds between rows of cars.
The past few months of my life have been like this crosswalk. I have been stuck in the median, where a clock flashes the countdown, and I must wait. Recently I have been on autopilot, navigating and preparing for college. The prospect of new environments, friends, and mental pursuits is equal parts exciting and terrifying. Because the future is uncertain, I can't help but feel uneasy. I do not, however, find solace in my past. When I reflect on my childhood, I do not have the nostalgic fondness I anticipated. This is because I am still experiencing the final chapter of childhood; therefore, I cannot reminisce to the extent of a thirty-year-old.
Consequently, reflection induces more depressive than partial feelings. I sense I am losing something that perhaps I should have appreciated more. Then again, I have nothing else to compare childhood to, as I have yet to experience adult life. This period is the first of many liminal stages in my life. And for the coming months, the question remains: am I losing something great or gaining something even better?
The college process asks me to reflect on my life, accomplishments and being thus far. But as I write, I convey a person whose identity is not fully solidified yet. Half of my life—from birth to nine—is a fuzzy puzzle of events I wrack my brain to recall. Of course, I have abundant, meaningful experiences, people, and even transgressions that have shaped me, but it feels incomplete to package myself tightly into one application. They ask to see the sum of a person in 150 character descriptions. I ask myself, what am I reflecting on at the end of the day? Moreover, what exactly am I working towards?
An inherent self-assurance and confidence comes with knowing exactly where you want to go and study. Pre-med at Princeton, comp-sci at Columbia, or print-making at Pratt. I fall into this trap, bracing for the world and college admissions, with an unwarranted certainty of what I want, but it is a facade. I tell myself that I know what I want when I only have a general idea, and even that is constantly shifting. I was reminded of an Oscar Wilde quote, "if you want to be a grocer, or a general, or a politician, or a judge, you will invariably become it; that is your punishment." Furthermore, "If you never know what you want to be if you live what some might call the dynamic life but what I will call the artistic life, if each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know you will never become anything, and that is your reward." To a certain extent, liminality and unpredictability are not what we seek but need.
Although it has been challenging to present what my life has meant and what it could mean, reflecting was not necessarily bad for me. After all, college is not the end all be all of my life story; it is merely the beginning. But as for the present, perhaps this intersection, like the one on Houston, is more of an opportunity than I originally conceived; the light is flashing before me, counting down for me to enter adulthood, but for a fleeting moment, I can stand still.