Searching for Something Infinite
Typography by Fatima, frame from Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).
“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”
I think I’ve been on a search for feeling infinite since I read Stephen Chbosky’s prose on the pages of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. His description of infiniteness rattled me. I knew exactly the feeling that he described; I just didn’t know how to put it into words.
At school, I took a class that discussed Chbosky’s iconic young adult novel. As a group, we made a chart of what made us feel infinite. The list varied a bit for each person depending on personal interests, but some items matched on everyone’s lists. Stargazing. Driving at night. Deep talks with friends. Listening to your favorite song.
I like to point out the moments I feel infinite. Most often, this declaration interrupts a friend mid-sentence or startles the silence of a serene moment. But I find it important to bookmark these moments. Sometimes I feel that if I don’t say it out loud, I might forget what made the moment feel intangibly serendipitous. Maybe this is a hint that I have a hobby of pretending I’ve experienced more infinite moments than I actually have. Surely, I would remember if I felt infinite. It wouldn’t be infinite if I didn’t.
I thought I knew what it felt like. Then, I truly felt infinite. July 28th. A summer camp trip to Inks Lake with my cabin. We arrived mid-morning with stomachs full of breakfast tacos and watered-down coffee. The temperature neared the mid-90s, though the lakefront humidity made our skin crawl. Luckily, the water stayed cool. We jumped in, watching the thick coats of sunscreen and tanning oil we just applied float away in the lake water. I watched for turtles swimming by my feet. My friend and I hopped on a tube and admired another sleep-away camp on the lake. It looked like ours, but with slight differences in the colors of the cabins, the material of the waterslides, the number of sailboats in a makeshift harbor. I suspected that we had entered a multiverse. Picnics, cliff-jumping, and unexpected torrents of rain filled the rest of the afternoon. Each experience came with a few challenges: deciding on what chips to have at lunch, working up the courage to free-fall from a rock too tall for comfort, determining who in our cabin would win Survivor as we waited for the rain clouds to dissipate. The eventful afternoon left a quiet calmness in its wake. A calmness perfect for writing our own personal mission statement, a rite of passage for you last year as a camper at my camp. The words ran from my subconscious to the paper to my voice as we shared our mission statements with each other as the sun set and I wiped happy tears from my eyes. A waxing gibbous moon and Taylor Swift’s folklore humming through the stereo closed out the day.
This day wasn’t outlandishly fantastic. It was simple and fun. But I was determined to make it meaningful. My last year of camp drew to its end, and I wanted to gift myself with a lifetime of memories. I discovered that a moment cannot be infinite on its own. You have to be in the right mindset, ready to be vulnerable and fearless and impulsive. You can’t wait for an infinite moment to waltz into your life. You have to make them. Infinite moments make life worth living. So, if I create those moments, I make my life worth living. These faraway moments, these intangible feelings that I created—I am determined to make more of them. Because I want to live everyday like that one perfect camp day. Because on that day, I swear we were infinite. ◆
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