Chillin’ in the Middle

“Yes, I’m stuck in the middle with you,

and I’m wondering what it is I should do.

It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face,

losing control, and I’m all over the place.”

“Stuck in the Middle With You” – Stealers Wheel

 

Among other preoccupations of mine, like sleeping enough or calculating that my student loan payments won’t come to an end until I’m 59 years old, sharing has become of central concern to my off-campus life.

Living with people I don’t know, it’s not as easy to jump in front of whoever is en route to the shower and quip, “I have to use the bathroom real quick–just gimme a sec!” Shower, toilet, and manicuring time needs to be carefully timed, for two reasons:

1. My housemates are graduate students and therefore follow schedules with different and more inconvenient demands than those of many undergraduates, not to devalue the amount of stress and responsibility of others’ lives, including my own; and
2. We all have to catch a bus. It’s not fair to lock yourself in for half an hour if someone else needs to go to the bathroom before they miss their bus to campus.

But sharing also takes center stage in another room–the kitchen. We three tenants share one shelf in the fridge, where space, like time in the bathroom, is a limited entity. Out of necessity, I’m all about condensing, but I encourage that everyone try to practice it. Test out your Tetris skills by stacking your food items, but, most importantly, transfer contents to smaller containers when possible. Squeezing air out of bags, particularly those that contain produce, not only saves space but slows the process of browning. (Don’t let your greens get too oxidized!)

As Stealers Wheel’s song emphasizes, sometimes it’s kind of comical to be expected to take up a set amount of space, and it applies to many arenas–classroom desks, sleeping positions, and overhead plane storage. Each person is a combination of their body and their belongings, but when they get all jumbled and confined, all we can really do is laugh. We’re all in this world together, packed a little more tightly than is comfortable.

(Hey, at least I have my own room.)