Just an Anthropology Major
By Ingrid Muñoz
The leaf is not just a leaf. Looking deeply at the leaf we see the leaf contains the whole cosmos. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Intro
Today I’m going to tell you a true story. You might wonder why it matters, and the truth is, I can’t promise that you’ll benefit from hearing it. That part is mostly up to you.
This story is much too long to tell from start to finish, so we’ll only be covering some essential parts, enough to perhaps send an important message. We begin with the following mental imagery – if you can, I want you to close your eyes and simply listen.
Slipping Through My Fingers
Imagine a little girl, about 5 years old.
Her little brother has just been born.
This is the best thing, she thinks to herself, I have a forever buddy to play with now.
The next day, she finds herself kissing him goodbye before rushing off to kindergarten.
She comes home from school and gives him a quick hello before sitting down to do homework.
Years later, that little girl is now a teenager in high school.
The same patterns from before on repeat, this time with all three of her younger siblings.
Flash forward 10 more years.
She sits at a table on the first floor of Geisel.
Next to her, is a friend she is grateful to have met.
He seems like a kind and interesting person; she is glad he agreed to join her.
She turns away.
She can’t speak to him right now. They both have work to do. Too much work.
A ray of sun catches her eye through the window behind her – the sun is setting outside.
Another day gone, wasted, she laments.
Remembering, suddenly, how far away she is from her family and friends – from her home,
Reminiscing on the times she would watch the sun go down while she played basketball at the park with her loved ones,
She looks around at the faces glued to their laptop and phone screens.
What am I doing here, she asks herself, how did I get here?
You can open your eyes now.
This story is told through the eyes of a young girl, trying to get her Bachelor of Science in Biological Anthropology. 27 years old, arguably not a girl anymore, but perhaps that’s what infuses this story with a tad more wisdom. Halfway between two of life’s alleged ‘checkpoints’, she finds herself taking a writing class. Little did she know that class would reawaken her and provide her with the tools she needed to take back her own life.