Second semester started the way most things do lately—quietly, and without warning. One day it’s break and long naps and leftover pie, and the next I’m sitting in a cold lecture hall, trying to remember how to take notes like a real person.
I ran into Nox on campus the other day. We haven’t had a real conversation since finals. He's the kind of guy who always has some weird, brilliant thought in his back pocket, ready to drop it mid-conversation like it’s nothing. This time was no different.
We were sitting on the grass behind the science building, watching clouds do what clouds do best—move slowly and never explain themselves. He said, “You ever think about how none of this feels real? Like… what even is reality? One person’s life could sound like a complete lie to someone else.”
I laughed at first. Thought he was just being poetic again. But the more we sat with it, the more it made sense.
There are people out there who’ve never left the city they were born in—and then people like Brooke, who used to fly to Tokyo like it was a weekend errand. People who grew up in quiet houses with dinner at 6 p.m. sharp, and people who raised themselves on cereal and cartoons while their parents worked three jobs. People who believe in God. Or ghosts. Or fate. Or none of it. And every single one of them is telling the truth… at least their version of it.
One man’s truth really is another man’s fiction.
It made me think about my own life. About being raised by two moms. About hopping from country to country before California felt like home. About how someone’s mother once said my hair color explained my sexuality. About how a guy in my psych class last semester said trauma isn't real, just “bad choices.” And how someone else once told me I was lucky for having a “fun, non-traditional family,” like it was a quirky Pinterest board instead of a whole, real life.
What’s fake to you might be sacred to someone else. What’s obvious to me might feel like magic to Nox. It’s wild.
And maybe that’s what college is—learning how to sit with other people’s truths without trying to rewrite them. Learning how to share yours without apologizing for it.
Anyway, second semester has barely started and I already feel like I’ve been hit with a philosophical brick. Thanks, Nox.
Here’s to another few months of learning what’s real—for me, for others, and for whatever lives in the strange, blurry middle.
