An Observation in Los Angeles

Dead, tired… All I wanted to do was go home and sleep, like every other day. My hair was a mess and my outfit matched my mood, all black. A girl walked by me stressfully eating a salad on her way in to class, and as I asked her if I may ask her a question, she made me feel like a failed salesman when she replied “sorry, don’t have time.”

As I felt her energy rub off on me, sinking my mood even further, I opened the door and the sun hit me like a slap in the face, and I woke up. I slowly removed my Rayban sunglasses and noticed the light, the beautiful sunlight. I had not seen this type of sunny day or felt this type of warmth in months. The California spring was finally here.

As I looked around me I noticed all the people. I felt like time slowed down for one minute and I could even feel the smell of the grass. I saw the people waiting for the bus, the people walking to their cars, and the people running in to class. Airplanes were taking off and landing at Santa Monica airport nearby, and the sky was so clear for the first time in a long time that you could see the tall buildings in Century City from afar. I felt calm, serene, and peaceful. It was as if the environment had shifted with my mood. All of a sudden people were smiling, a bus driver was holding up the door to a student, and I found the sound of birds to be beautiful as opposed to annoying. As I walked up the stairs back into my classroom I noticed a young man sitting outside with his books beside him, and a guitar in his hands, he was playing music and softly singing along. I felt comforted.

All this time I had been rushing, just like everybody else, rushing to school, or to work or wherever it is that we have to be, and I was unbelievably tired of it all. I was dying to finish school, dying to start a career, and then I would have been dying to never have to work again. And then I realized that if I let myself continue this way, I would be dying in real life wishing I had remembered to live. And so I did, and I will.

-Daniela Barhanna