DEAR LIFE, COULD YOU JUST MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE?

It's not just the fact that I am scared to grow up and leave my home, to graduate and leave the same school I’ve been going to for 13 years of my life. It’s the fact that I feel stripped of the only constant I’ve ever known. Everyone has one, a constant: a routine, a sport, a person, a pet, your house, your life’s constant.

Today, I struggled with my constant. I walked the halls of my elementary school, and everything was different. It all changed. The classrooms looked different and were on different floors. I couldn’t find any of my old teachers, and they no longer had a computer lab, and, what was worse, the library looked different. I was told my remaining days at school were in the 100s. My constant was—and is—slipping from me, fast. Yes, life is about movement and change, no matter how uncomfortable, but who am I without my constant? Who are you?

Walls get repainted, and furniture changes shape and size. Some of the people walking in and out of your home’s doors never revisit. Some get older. Some move away. Graves get added, and birth certificates get written, and it feels as if life doesn’t want you to keep your constant. You can't help but say, “I don’t want to have to chase after life and move out of the way of the obstacles it keeps throwing my way. Dear Life, why can’t you just meet me in the middle?” But that’s like asking the Earth to change its orbit around the sun simply due to the fact that you're squinting in the direction of the glare.

As a soon-to-be graduate, you feel change. It’s not here yet, but you can feel it—an understanding between yourself, your classmates, your family, and especially your friends. An understanding that the bubble you so delicately created together of home and familiarity, is about to pop, and you can’t do a single thing to stop it. The feeling of nostalgia before you have anything to actually miss—an understanding deep within yourself that these are good days; and sure, there were certainly bad days, but this is it. You won’t be here in these moments all together again. Life actually did meet you in the middle. You laughed, you smiled, you may have cried, but you felt… and you became your own constant. Who are you?

Yet you are not a constant. Yes, these are factors that make you, well… you, but there is no such thing as a constant. I lied, and maybe so did you. Life is going to throw, throw, and keep throwing, like a fountain that never stops flowing, and you will always find a new “constant” and a new thing to mourn and feel bittersweet about. But don’t expect your life to grow a beautiful, lively garden, wishing for flowers and not expecting the rain. Welcome it—welcome change. Embrace it like an old friend, get to know each other, and sit together in the silence of the unknown. You can reminisce about the past and the “constants” of your life, but as you wrestle with change, you may soon realize it was simply a variable of who you are.

Guest Essay

By Talia Allouba

Published February 19, 2025