I Asked Three Strangers If Life Was Worth Living This Week
Waiting for the 12A bus last Tuesday, my left sock soaked through from stepping in that unmarked pothole on 3rd that the city’s been ignoring for six months, I had the question stuck in my head like a bad pop song. I’d woken up that morning scrolling through my phone at 6 a.m., couldn’t sleep, and some creator was going off about how everyone’s just faking it, no one actually thinks life is worth living, we’re all just going through the motions to pay rent. The question niggled. I’d had my own stretch of bad days lately, so I got to thinking: do people really?
I turned to the woman next to me, who was clutching a crumpled grocery bag with a can of cat food and a bright yellow lemon sticking out the top, and just blurted it. “Sorry, that’s so weird, but do you ever think about whether life is actually worth living?” I immediately wanted to disappear into the wet concrete. My face got hot, I started stammering an apology, explained I’d just had too much bad sweet coffee and a weird morning, and she just laughed, loud and crackly like old paper. She said her husband died two years ago, her only kid moved to Portland for a job and only comes home once a year, her arthritis acts up so bad some nights she can barely turn the pages of her mystery novel. “Most days it’s just feeding the cat, refilling my bird feeder, waiting for the bus to the grocery store,” she said. “Not very exciting. But last week my granddaughter sent me a photo of her first loose tooth, all wobbly and grinning. And this lemon? I smelled it when I picked it out at the roadside stand, and it’s so sweet it almost hurts. Worth living? Yeah. Mostly. Not every single day. But most days, it adds up.” The bus came then, she got on first, patted my wet sleeve on the way past.
Later that day, I had to bring my wool sweater to the 24-hour laundromat because some kid spilled a full orange soda on me on the bus ride to the dentist. The 19-year-old kid working the front desk was leaning against the counter scrolling TikTok, name tag that said Javi, had a sticker of a skateboard peeling off the corner of his phone. I was fumbling with quarters and he came over to help, and I asked him again, same question. I know, I know, I was being that person, bugging strangers who just want to get through their shift with weird existential questions. He blinked at me, scratched the back of his neck, and leaned against the dryer next to me. Said he dropped out of community college last semester because he couldn’t afford the $120 textbook for his bio class, his car died two weeks ago and he can’t fix it, he’s crashing on his cousin’s couch right now ‘cause he couldn’t pay rent on his own studio. “Shit, man,” he said, grinned a little lopsided. “Yesterday I found a whole unopened bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos behind the last dryer. Somebody must’ve dropped it and forgot. It was still good, not even stale. And my mom sent me a meme of a frog wearing a cowboy hat that made me snort-laugh so hard I choked on my soda. Is that enough? I don’t think about the big question most days, honestly. If I do, I get all twisted up in my chest. I just wait for the Cheetos and the frog memes. That works for right now.”
That evening, I ran into the retired teacher who walks his greyhound past my apartment every night, the one with the grey muzzle and the tiny yellow rain jacket that’s too big for him. We were both grabbing cold beer at the corner bodega, and I asked him. He sighed, rubbed his dog between the ears, said his dog has terminal cancer, he’s spending all his retirement savings on vet meds just to give him another couple months. Lost his wife to breast cancer four years ago. “Some mornings I sit on my porch drinking coffee and I think, what’s the point of getting out of the chair?” he said. “But this guy,” he nodded at the dog, who was sniffing a dropped chip bag on the floor, “he still gets so excited when he sees a squirrel he almost yanks my arm off. He still stops to roll in every patch of clover he finds. That rubs off on you, after a while. Worth living? It’s not the way it was when I was young and we had all these big plans. It’s messier, and there’s a lot more bad days than I thought there’d be. But yeah. It still is.”
I went home after that, heated up leftover pork fried rice from the Chinese place down the street that was way too greasy, turned on that terrible 90 Day Fiancé I’m embarrassed to admit I watch. I’ve had those days, you know? Last month, I spent a whole Sunday crying on the couch because my rent went up $180, my cat peed on the cashmere sweater my grandma gave me before she died, and I just thought what the fuck is the point of any of it. I used to think that if you had to ask the question, the answer was no. I used to think people who said life was worth it were either lying or they just had way more money or luck than me.
But now I don’t know. I don’t have some neat answer to wrap this all up with. Last night I lay awake for two hours worrying about my 401k and whether I’ll ever be able to afford a place that doesn’t have a leaky shower and whether I’m wasting my time working a job that doesn’t even feel that important. This morning I made oatmeal, put too much cinnamon on it like I always do, and the sun came through the kitchen window, and the neighbor’s tabby cat jumped up on my fire escape to watch a sparrow, and it just… felt okay. Not great. Not life-changing. Just okay.
Most people aren’t out here shouting that life is perfect. They’re not even faking it, really. They’re just collecting the tiny, stupid, good bits between the bad ones. A fragrant lemon, a free bag of Cheetos, a dog that goes crazy for squirrels. That’s all. I still don’t know the answer for sure, some days. But that’s okay too, I guess.
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