proof of life by Gloria Z. '26

preface:

1. this blog is comprised of various snippets I wrote in May, very loosely stitched together because I gave up on trying to have a thesis. also the writing is not very snappy oops
2. the soundtrack to this blog is the album Blue Moon Safari by Air and Vegyn :-)

Last fall, I took a lighter academic load, two classes, so that I could work an internship during the daytime hours. I was writing embedded code for hardware systems, which was somewhat engaging, but, in true Severance fashion, I felt myself blink out and in of existence as I crossed the threshold of the office each morning and evening. The meat of each day was some combination of staring at Jira, VS Code, C++ docs, and the free snack selection in the mini-kitchen; what I remember best, instead, are the bones before and after, the slow trek through Cambridge and Somerville, first past looming biotech towers, then through not-quite-suburban residential areas, then into an area in the midst of construction, still carrying the vestiges of 1900s industrial Cambridge. The image is vivid: a placid fall scene with sidewalks covered in paper-mache leaves and a strange sort of black dirt residue, with adorable houses lining the two-lane (no bike lane!) streets. They sported dusty candy colors, worn and chipped in all the right ways; in the front lawns, there were half-open grills, smudged plastic toys, and low-slung lounge chairs faded by weather and use. Proofs of life.

I found myself staring at these houses each day as I passed, wondering about the poor souls oxidizing inside. I felt myself grow thirty years older in the span of a block; the horizon melted from my thoughts, replaced by stacks of unopened mail and grocery store receipts. A ticking timer on a carton of milk and a slab of chicken waiting to be thawed. An overwhelming sense of doom would trickle and pool in my chest, like syrup, softening.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the suburbs, but I’ve always felt a creeping sense of dread at this vision of settling–not settling as in settling for something less, but settling as in stopping, resting, putting down roots deep into the dirt. With this dread came an aversion to all those elements of domestic or “traditional” life: having kids, getting married, buying a single-family home. Filling up gas, having a mortgage. Planting a sapling in the front yard. I’ve realized I like the feeling of always being somewhat agitated, having something on the horizon, and, probably unrealistically, I have this idea of “adulthood” as a flat circle: mostly always the same, spinning uniformly, stable, settled, secure, satisfied. In some way, then, I’m scared of being satisfied–not in a sigma male productivity core way, but in an almost childish way, like a kid who has eyes bigger than her stomach and wants to have it all, no matter the cost.

Every summer I feel that I get a taste of this settling. Whether I’m doing research or working an internship, life slows down, to an almost sluggish pace, no more random events, no more chance encounters, no more long nights in the library. My calendar is empty save the occasional social event, and I don’t need notifications to remember what’s going on in my day: I leave the house at 8:02AM and take the 8:13AM bus; my days are work plus workout plus meals, and maybe one other thing if I have the time and energy. The weeks, minus minor differences, seem to blur together, especially when I’m in the office. It’s somewhat monotonous, yet very comfortable. After all, on many counts, life is better than when I’m in school. I sleep consistently and well, I eat healthy meals at regular times, I feel generally more in control and steady, more relaxed in my off hours. The weekends mean free time and leisure, rather than extra time to catch up on psets. I have more time to watch movies, to try new restaurants, and to spend extended periods of time in nature.

And yet, there’s still a part of me that thrashes and whines: “Is this it? Is this all?” It feels uncomfortable to rotate slowly in place, without some menacing goal on the horizon. So maybe this is why people enter midlife and run a marathon. (As someone who picked up running this summer, this is mostly a dig at myself.) Grabbing coffee from the micro kitchen, I can blink and see the afterimage of ten more years unrolling in front of me – graduating, working, having a family, baking bread on the weekends. By all means a happy life, really. 

Maybe I’m preempting a midlife crisis (and therefore inciting one), prompted by an impending graduation and an immense sense of newness with each passing season. Over the past year I’ve felt a guttural drop into early adulthood, not a swan dive off a cliff but a slow winding descent, as I started booking my own flights and travel plans and scheduling monthly payments into my Roth IRA. First apartment, first taxes, first conversation with my mom as (almost) equal adults rather than child and parent. At the same time, the future slit itself open and fell splayed like a cake box; my classmates graduated or took leave and generally dispersed, calling new cities “home” and sinking their own pincers deep into the black dirt. I felt that there was never any rush after all. I felt more pressure than ever to pick the figs up off the ground.

Anyway –

May in Boston means 65 degrees, air the same temperature as your body, on the precipice of sweat. The end of junior year means sitting in a sticky circle with friends you think you understand a little better now, tracing conversations you’ve already had a million times, but now with slightly different vocabulary and a bit more shared history. It’s asking them how much they value their relationships versus their work, in a meta impersonal sort of way, and hearing the same answer that you would give, but maybe not the answer you’re supposed to want to hear. It’s folding all your belongings over themselves into two tired boxes, carrying them by hand over the bridge, and stashing your bike in an anonymous emailer’s backyard shed. I had spent spring semester frantically and methodically reducing, simmering my life on medium heat until the moisture steamed off, trying to loop into a point I couldn’t quite grasp. There was a strange freneticism to the semester, of collapsing a billion possible futures into one, and of gently parting soft lips and peeling one back into many, every conversation tinged with slight hopeful premonition.

points if you know what movie this is from

May in Boston is – false beginnings, casual goodbyes, a sky seeping honey and salt. It’s pinch, blink, smile, turn. It is the summer ahead like an overripe orange. It is joy, after all.