Life is a Story, Mostly a Mystery

My housemate had his laptop stolen a few weeks ago. He came home from work one night, and it was gone from his room. Just the laptop was missing and nothing else. In fact, the rest of the house appeared untouched. There were no signs of forced entry, and nothing else was missing.

It’s a little disconcerting that this happened in our house. Since nothing else was missing, it appears to be an inside job. That would narrow down the suspects to our two other housemates. I don’t know either of them very well, so it’s a tough call. Either way, stealing something is not a good way to build trust.

This incident reminds me of one of the hardest lessons of growing up — the fact that life keeps happening even when you’re not around. It’s something you don’t realize when you’re just a little kid. The concept of time hasn’t quite made it into your tiny head yet. As far as you’re concerned, life is only whatever you see.

Somewhere along the line, we start to realize that time doesn’t stop when we’re not around. We finally understand that when our parents leave for work, they’re doing stuff without us. We start having to remember things, so we can share what happened when they get back.

Of course, our memories aren’t perfect, and everybody lies. These two things make life dramatic, exciting, and mysterious. I think we spend 20% of our lives doing stuff, and the other 80% figuring out what happened while we were gone.

Life is a giant game of Clue. We try to figure out who did what and where. The problem is that the only person you really know about is you. I know that I didn’t steal the laptop, but that’s it.

The rest is … a mystery.