How life lets me know I’m human

Everyday, I get awaken by my blaring phone alarm. The early morning sunlight would stream into my room in spears of ribbons and the soft glow would snugly caress my head. Birds sing outside my window, but rather than melodic tunes, I hear them as squawks I can’t snooze. But, those squawks inevitably serve as a reminder that I’m not alone, and that it’d be more unnerving if I woke up to complete silence. If I haven’t overslept, then I’d have time for a quick morning shower, but if otherwise, I’d throw together an outfit and make a bee line to the car.

Because it’s already summer, opening the car door will greet me to a fiery slap in the face. The air inside the car has bubbled and boiled into its own scorching biosphere. One can only associate this sensation to having Satan’s hellish breath being blown straight into your face. It’s summers like these that make me grateful for not having leather seats. But, usually being on a time crunch, I don’t have minutes to spare cooling down the car. The steering wheel and gear shift knob that's been basking in the sun’s mighty glory would sting and prick my fingertips as I would begin to reverse out of the driveway.

I don’t mind driving. In fact, I quite enjoy it. Those minutes in the car serve as a complete distraction and disassociation from my pathetic life. It’s a time where I could listen to music and sing to my hearts content with no judgement.

Getting into class, I’ll be greeted one-by-one by my friends. It’s difficult to give these people the label of ‘friends’ as we all inevitably know that none of us will keep in contact after this semester. It’s only because of life that we’ve been pushed together to suffer in the same class, but once we stop, we’ll no longer have any reason to keep in touch. All of us knows it, but for now, we’ll muster up smiles on our faces and ask each other how our weekend was even though our artificial interactions won’t really matter in one more week.

The 2 and a half hours in class will surely be mundane. The teacher with a thick accent will lecture on and on, while I’ll be on my laptop pretending to understand and follow along. I’d usually spend that time doing homework or writing out diary entries. When he finally lets us out, my ‘friends’ and I will walk each other to our cars and rambling about nonsense on the way. Usually it’d be quizzes or homework from the nights before or about upcoming exams.

Frivolous things that don’t matter in the future, but in the moment, it still makes me grateful to know that, again, in this life, I’m not alone.