I woke up Thursday morning to a towed car. I had moved it from its usual garage to a spot right outside of my apartment complex — an admittedly illegal spot, but one that I saw cars take up daily, for multiple days in a row, with no apparent or heard-of consequences. I had happily, excitedly and unquestioningly volunteered to drive my good friend to the airport at the peaceful hour of five in the morning, and had figured that, for the sake of sanity, it would be best for me to park nearby rather than walk 20 minutes the morning of to pick up the vehicle.
But, alas: upon rolling out of bed and grabbing my cup of lukewarm coffee, I peeked my head over the railing of my apartment complex so I could see the parking spaces and double-check my car was there. To my disbelieving, eye-blinking shock, my car was gone. The five other illegally-parked cars present when I had left mine there only a few hours ago were still sitting in their illicit spots, un-towed and undisturbed. But mine, for whatever reason, was gone.
The rest was a blur. I called the police, my friend called an Uber. I called the tow company, walked downtown to Collier’s Towing Garage, attempted to finagle my way out of the steep pick-up fee, failed and drove away grumbling. Needless to say, it was not the best start to the morning.
I was caught up in a fury of head-shaking and teeth-gritting, frustrated and flustered at what had happened and how to suck it up and move on. I understood that this was, in the scheme of things, not terribly traumatic. Nevertheless, the events of the early morning weighed and rained on me like a cloud over my head.
However, upon returning to Grounds and being holed up in the library, I checked my phone to find a message from my English TA. A short, sweet, simple compliment saying that he had stumbled upon my last column and had “admired” it. One email, 15 words. Yet despite their simplicity, those 15 words turned my day around.
I recognized immediately how silly — almost embarrassingly so — my reaction to this brief note was. How interesting, though, that despite the large, overwhelming dent of The Tow Truck Incident, the smallness of those unexpected and kind words somehow balanced out the brunt of the early morning’s upsetting series of events.
With the year drawing to a close, I’ve been especially caught up and blown back by the speed at which time is moving. With a certain end looming just around the corner, the people around me have been doing a lot of counting: firsts, lasts, second-to-lasts, third times, fifth times, seven more days, almost over.
With these countdowns ticking constantly through my mind, I can’t help but be conscious of time slipping away. This newly-noticed conscientiousness of the speed of life isn’t born out of any fear of or worry for the future — personally, I don’t buy into the “best years of your life” argument, but that’s a discussion for another week — but rather stems from an ever-present nostalgia for the current moment. This moment, these years, this youth, these people — every day feels so precious, but everyone keeps reminding me how ephemeral these current days are.
It’s not that I’m afraid the future will be somehow less than this; it’s that this is already so good. How to say goodbye? How to let this minute leave? How to know that I’m taking full advantage of the ever-fleeting present, that I’m not simply succumbing to time and letting memories slip through my unknowing fingers?
I’ve been sharing this sentiment with friends, lamenting that half of our college careers are over but relishing in excitement for the summer, for the next two years. And in these exchanges, I’ve caught myself repeating the phrase, “Everything’s just so good.”
Which, again, is interesting. Everything is, indeed, good. But that doesn’t mean I’m without worry, that I’m not hitting proverbial speedbumps on a daily or close-to-daily basis. My car got towed. I had to dole out $150 to get it back. I have three papers due in a single week. My astronomy class is a thorn in my side and a heavy weight on my GPA. All of course are minor issues in the grand scheme of life. But despite such admittedly trivial headaches, I still want to hold on to moments like this.
Perhaps the key here is balance: few things are ever either perfectly perfect or imperfect. Some days, your car gets towed. It sucks, trust me, but that singular incident doesn’t — shouldn’t — detract from an entire day. But sometimes, your TA emails you a heartwarmingly random compliment and in only 15 words, turns you away from earlier negativity. Some years or periods of years are better than others, but that doesn’t — shouldn’t — make up the whole of a lifetime.
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