Humans are interesting creatures. As though afraid to miss out on life, we seem to miss it as it rushes past us.

We rush through the metro despite the trains leaving every 3 minutes. We wait in the long lines at the supermarket, irritably looking at our watches hoping time will go faster. We stand up on moving busses, trains and aeroplanes, only to, in an awkward position, have to wait for the doors to open.

Almost no matter where we are, or what we are doing, we are ready to leave already as we arrive.

Maybe this is based on the apparent consensus that life happens in the big moments. Those moments that, before Instagram and digital cameras snapped them and hung them in the past, were framed and hung on the walls. Moments of life that are classified as parties, first-kisses, celebrations, victories, losses, heartbreaks, disease, recovery, promotions, and orgasms. A mass-hysteric FOMO-panic defined by that which can be deemed worthy of the epithet extraordinary. Yet in this search for the next big thing, we miss all the little things: Life itself, as it happens.

I am in no way in such an enlightened state that my soul truly comprehend that which my intellect knows; that life is not the big moments, life is what happens in the moments in between. Life is queuing. Life is getting dressed. Life is sitting patiently on a train. Life is arguing, resolving and forgetting. Life is dreamless sleeping. And life is slowly dying.

Outside of my apartment, the evening train passes on the rails that separate my house from the lake nearby, leaving a heavy swooshing sound as it continues on its journey. The sound is one of my favourite features of my current residence: the soft, reliable confirmation of the ready option for me to leave.