I asked my father what it meant to be alive when I was five years old.
It was a sunny day, and I had the radio up to the highest volume my small ears could manage to keep up with. I was in the living room, a large space for my small form back then. The air smelled of nothing at all, the sky had very few clouds, and I was all alone.
I have always been alone, I reckon. Maybe it wasn’t ideal, a child left alone for so long does nothing but pull growing pains closer to their heart, earning nothing but bitterness and yearning for something that never quite happened.
I asked my father what it meant to be alive that day.
I had danced, the yellow walls being my only companion, as I made up dance moves to hit every single note that resonated with my heart. Songs about love, about happiness, about dreams of sunsets and beaches and laughter and the high of life. I danced along them as if I was there, with them all, singing and enjoying the view.
My dad called, he usually did, in order to keep me company, so I felt a little less alone.
“How are you my princess?”
I even remember the tender voice in which he spoke, I remember the feeling in my chest that bubbled right after, happy to hear I was held with care in his mind.
We talked, it was calm and nice, and as I laid down, tired from spinning and jumping and stomping around, I asked him.
“Dad, why can’t we see ourselves?” A second later I realized it sounded too odd aloud, and due to his pause and small chuckle, I knew to have missed making my point come across.
He, kind as ever, patient as ever, even when he didn’t have to, tried explaining how our eyes can’t really leave our sockets naturally, and how mirrors work, and how reflections in general, work. I sighed.
“No, that’s not what I meant” I countered, frustrated, for I lacked the words to make him understand I didn’t understand.
To that little kid, humans were fascinating, a true subject of study. Something so utterly enchanting in the way we talked and moved, and thought and acted. Something so magical about the mere prospect of being alive, or living and breathing and existing.
“Why are we alive?” I finally asked.
I wanted to know, right then and there, what waited for me as years came. Adults around me talked about their lives in an interesting manner, one that always had me wondering why we ever lived the way we did. I was young, but I knew bitter eyes and voices when I heard them, I knew knowing looks and disapproving glances when cast. I knew tone shifts and body twitches and tenses, I knew how to discern between lies and truths and pretend I didn’t know I was being wronged. I was young, but I understood many things, even then.
I guess it’s the price to pay for solitude, for having no one to talk to but myself most of the time, and I guess that, too, is the direct cause of the endless streak of voices in my head, never ceasing or giving me a break, never leaving me alone in the silence, with a sort of horror vacui I wasn’t even aware I had.
Little me saw all the people in and outside my life and wondered about all of their lives, wondered about how they ended up where they were, what they did, how they did it. Why they laughed the way they did, said the things they said, did the things they did. None of my questions were ever answered, as I don’t think I ever came up with a good way of communicating my unwavering curiosity without causing distress or concern on anyone.
If a toddler ever came to you, looked at you dead in the eye, and asked you to try and explain why is humanity the way it is, so broken, unaware, and tired, but so fascinating and intricate and woeful and blissful, how would you answer?
If a child that hasn’t been on earth that much, hasn’t gone out that much, hasn’t talked aloud that much, hasn’t been heard that much, ever came to you and asked what is the meaning of life, what would you have answered?
So I laid there, my back pressed against the sofas on the living room that did nothing to help me cool down after quite an intense workout in a dance battle to the death against my old radio, talking nonsense to my father and asking all these existentialist questions that he had no time to explain to me the way he would’ve liked to in his little breaks.
Why are we alive? Why are we here? Breathing and living, and smiling and laughing, and ultimately alone?
Why are we here, waking up every day to follow a routine we don’t even realize we’ve made, to open our eyes and know our time was limited, that it was shortening with every breath, that even if it was knowledge everyone had come to terms with, no one actively thought about it.
Dad, why are we alive?
How can an adult answer that in a way that makes a five-year-old understand? I’m not sure if I understood what he answered me, or maybe I did, because that day has always made its way back to the forefront of my mind when I needed it, his gentle voice guiding me towards his own conclusion and experiences, not trying to force me down to accept anything he said as if it was said on stone.
Little me tried to wonder and imagine the reason behind it all, it saddens me, though not greatly, to know it took me far too long to think about an answer I would’ve appreciated as a small child. Even as I write this, part of me knows my answer will not stay unchanging, but I like the place I’ve reached.
It took years, years of going back to those yellow walls and perfect sky and uneventful day, years of going back to my father’s chuckles on the other end of the line, wondering if that day, he started to ponder over the meaning of life just a little, too.
Now I ask you, reader, why are we alive? What do you think has brought us here? Why are our souls so great they can barely be contained inside our bodies? Why are our breaths counted, why do things end and start anew? Why do souls transcend?
I ask you.
Why?
