I see the army green backpack with an American flag patch stitched on it first. I want to ask if she’d enlisted in the army and about her experience. I’m unpacking some of my clothes and toiletries for my two-day stay in a Zurich hostel and my eyes can’t stop looking over at the flag in the corner. Precisely, thinking she was in the military — paired with my own interest in serving — gave me the courage to start our first conversation.
She’s from Portland, Oregon, but she moved to Turkey after leaving an abusive marriage and now teaches English to kids online. She’s the first person in her family to go to college, where she studied music, became a music teacher and sometimes sings and plays piano in abandoned churches.
I’m from the middle of nowhere — Carmel, Indiana, specifically, where the soybean stalks and corn fields grow taller and wider than the average Hoosier. I live in Atlanta now for college, and I study two things, one for money and the other for fun. I swim, practice Muay Thai and work at my college newspaper.
“How are you?” she asks.
A loaded question, given everything that had transpired in the last three months. On screen, I’m living a dream — solo backpacking across five countries and 19 cities by train. In reality, I bask in pity parties and constantly question what self-reflection really means. Before meeting her, I spent days wandering the streets of Vienna reliving last conversations, metaphorical violence and texting my past to see if I would get a response — like panning for gold, except I’m sifting away the gold and leaving the sand instead. In many ways, I think the goal was to figure out what it would be like if time had passed a little slower or if I would get my “Jeremy Bearimy” moment and try things all over again. I listen to playlists called “biking in salzkammergut heartbroken” and start a list of “notes to her,” because staring behind me is easier than looking forward. Hostel living is a catalyst for openness and sincerity; after all, chances are that I won’t see these people again. I could just be that crazy cat lady with a teenage-angst-filled story.
“Do you want my honest answer?” I ask, and then pause. “Actually, can I ask you for some advice? A neutral opinion.”
“Of course.”
By the time the light outside our room in Zurich had dimmed and our other roommates for the night wandered into the room, she’d heard about the heartbreak, the alcohol and everything in between.
“Do you think I did the right thing? I can’t wrap my head around it, let alone justify it.”
She thinks for a moment, and tells me to focus on myself and to be confident that I know what’s right for me. But for what it’s worth, she says, I think you made the right choice. She opens up about her life after I’ve been honest with mine. Within minutes of hearing her talk, I’m convinced I’ve met the most honest person in the world.
She tells me about being born into a religious household and not being able to talk to her siblings. She tells me how her brother’s phone was taken away and she has no way of contacting them.
I, on the other hand, overcompensate for my socioeconomic status by repeatedly mentioning it to justify myself. At times, it feels shameful to be a well-off college student trying to “find herself.” A part of me thinks I would make the perfect snobby rom-com character.
Our conversation starts intimate, but expands into the woes of the U.S. education system and her life in Turkey before turning philosophical when we talk about living, human connection and music. I wonder if our new roommates thought we already knew each other beforehand. Reaching over the railing of our bunk bed, she shows me “Tiger Striped Sky” by Roo Panes, and in return I play her the “4 Chord Song” by Axis of Awesome.
If human connection was calculated based on numbers of hours of conversation, there’s a ballpark of nine hours between us. If I quantify it, our relationship is shelved under “person I know.” Thank god humans are the furthest from rationality. I’m grateful for a momentary escape to love and connect fearlessly and limitlessly.
I left Paris at the beginning of the summer convincing myself I would sit down with strangers and hear their stories.
“How long are you here? Would you want to get a drink or something?” I ask. Hostel turnaround parallels light dancing in long-exposure photography — movement is illusory. I made a connection and hoped I was lucky enough to capture it right.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m on my way to Lucerne tomorrow morning. I think I’ll probably be gone by the time you wake up.”
“No way,” I say. “I’m leaving in two days and meeting my best friend there.” We made plans for drinks in Lucerne, a small town in central Switzerland and a 40-minute train ride away from Zurich.
In Lucerne, we meet at an Irish pub she had found earlier. It’s crowded, but she leads me toward the bar and we order two lagers. The bartender sees through our tourist veneer and offers us an empty table closest to the door and lets us order mozzarella sticks to share. We continue our conversation from Zurich, shouting over the loud cheers and glasses clinking against the wooden tables. I’m tipsy enough to lose my self-consciousness and shout about vulnerable stories most people have never heard in a city I barely know to a friend I’ve only just met.
I tell her I plan on attending therapy — hopefully. But only if it works with my schedule, I clarify.
“We’re all too busy to realize our souls are broken,” she says.
“Can I write that down?” I shout.
She grins. “Of course, I would be honored.” Later she says something along the lines of “I get that.” She’s barely much older than me, but listens with a practiced musician's ear. She’s patient even when I’m definitely saying more than I should.
“What do you think it means to live?” one of us asks.
I’m content keeping her answer to myself because I intend on asking again in five years. But I will share this: “Just because people don't show up and love us the way that we need them to, doesn't mean they’re not worthy.”
I stumble upstairs to the bathroom and someone stops to hold the door for me. She grabs my arm and asks if I’m OK. “Thanks for asking,” I say, “But I’m fine. It’s just Asian glow.”
She still looks concerned, so this time I smile and repeat myself. “I’m really OK now.”
At the end of our night, she walks with me to the bus. Under the lamplight and the alcohol content of the beer catching up to my cheeks, I’m living in the middle of this rom-com movie. But no, this doesn’t turn into a 21st century travel meet-cute. Quite the opposite, actually — getting a drink with her was like sitting down with someone who is OK with their own duality. Someone who can look at themselves in the mirror and no longer be scared off.
She writes poetry and sings and plays piano in abandoned churches. She lives with a comfort with herself and an appreciation of the world that sees each individual life not as different pieces of a whole, but rather as wholes that make up bigger wholes. She takes change with practiced grace.
I learn to practice cliches not just as words hanging out of my mouth but as actions that will eventually become habits. I want to love life, not because it will end – like all the adages say – but because I love existing now.
It’s by no accident her name is never mentioned. In the end, we are all normal people; I just got lucky and she became not so normal to me.
Loving yourself doesn’t come by happenstance; not through hiking the Swiss Alps or biking 50 km in Salzburg, Austria. Sometimes I think I want to live her life, but other times I remember that meeting her was a reminder to live my own.
Sophia Ling (24C) is from Carmel, Indiana.
