By Jordan Liverant
Whenever I have a hard day and find myself feeling down, I always like to look out my window. You can see so much through a window. You can see the cars drive by, even at hours that most people would be sleeping. You can see people walking down the sidewalk; you can see them laughing. I live in an apartment building with 18 floors and I live on the fourth. From my bedroom window, I can see different apartment buildings, some big, some small, and I can see houses, too. Not a lot of them, though, because I live in New York City. It’s especially nice during the winter, when the tall trees outside my building that usually block the view of the surrounding buildings with their big, green leaves have shed, leaving them bare. This way I can see every single window around my building.
You’re probably wondering why I like seeing other people’s windows. Trust me, it’s not as creepy as it sounds. How I see it is that a different window is a different story. If I can see 20 different windows, there are 20 different stories, 20 different lives being lived. Even though I’m sitting by myself in my bedroom, I don’t feel as alone as I am. It’s a feeling of comfort that wraps me like a blanket and keeps me warm from my fears. It all comes from being surrounded by so many windows.
I can see when other people have their lights on. Some apartments have Christmas lights hanging on their windows, some have snowflake lights, and some even have Halloween lights year-round. My favorite time to look out the window is the week of Christmas. During that week, I peer through windows, and a lot of them have decorated Christmas trees sitting peacefully in their living rooms. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but seeing Christmas trees always brings a smile to my face. I like to imagine the apartments with the Christmas trees are filled with loving people who are spending time with family, enjoying every second of it, even if I’m not. And for a split second, I’m taken away from reality, and suddenly I’m in a cozy apartment with my family and a Christmas tree, listening to “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and laughing around the fire. Even though it’s for a second, that second feels so long, so real, and the feeling stays.
I’ve never seen anyone through their windows, but I like to imagine how they might be living their lives. Maybe the apartment on the sixth floor of the building a couple of blocks away from me is occupied by a small family, and they’re eating dinner right now, laughing at the dinner table about a joke that was said. And maybe the room of the apartment right next to them belongs to a small girl, six years old, and she’s squinting out her window trying to find the stars that her mom talks about every night to help her fall asleep. Maybe she’s thinking about her future. She might want to be a princess or a doctor when she grows up, something generic because that’s what most little kids think. Imagining her childhood helps me cope with the fact that mine is over. I like to think that the apartment above hers belongs to an old married couple, sitting by the crackling, warm fireplace, reflecting on their beautiful, long-lived lives.
Sometimes when I find myself crying so hard that I think I won’t even be able to sleep, I get up from my bed and sit by my window, looking for the lights. They make me feel warm when I’m feeling cold inside, and they brighten up my life when it seems to be really dark. Maybe I’ve heard the line “there’s a light at the end of the dark tunnel” way too many times. Either way, I love looking for lights outside my window. My favorite are the lights on this one apartment’s patio on the ninth floor of my building. They are the string lights that teenage girls usually have in their room. Even though they probably don’t mean anything, they are a sign to me. If I’m stuck in my own head, I stare out my window to see those bright lights staring back at me to say that things will get better.
There are times when I feel like there’s really no one else out there like the walls are caving in around me, but then I see so many windows outside. We live in a huge world with millions and millions of people and we’re just a speck in it all; seven billion people have their own lives, their own struggles, their own love, their own adventures, and somehow they’re figuring it out, so I can too.
Looking out my window makes me feel like even though I’m stuck in my small room, there’s a whole world out there with so many people to meet, so many memories to make, so many experiences to have, even though right now I’m only a girl sitting by a window.
Jordan Liverant is a Journalism major at Penn State and is originally from Brooklyn, New York. Ever since she was young, she loved to write, but never submitted her work, so she was so excited about this opportunity. Some of her hobbies include reading, watching movies, reading books, and hiking. Jordan is also on the Penn State fencing team!