The Girl in the Bathroom Stall

Today I saw a girl sleeping in the bathroom stall.

Her phone screen lit up with a notification as papers lay scattered around her. She was curled up on the cold, unwelcoming floor while the shuffling of students between classes somehow didn’t wake her. I didn’t know her. I didn’t recognize her backpack or her shoes. But I understood her exhaustion.

March is a long month. There are no breaks, just a steady stretch of assignments and “almost there”s. February was short in numbers but not in new material. January rushed in with midterms before we even finished saying “Happy New Year.” And the months before just blur together with papers, exams, new schedules, and higher expectations.

Student life has a way of compressing time. Or in a sense also elongating it. Days feel endless, but somehow entire months disappear. I once saw an art piece where dozens of human-like figures were crammed into the shape of a brain. Each figure was curled inward, packed tightly together, and covered in red. It felt familiar, like the girl napping on the bathroom floor.

As students, I think we hold so many versions of ourselves at once. There are different versions for each subject, analytical or creative. The version for sports and clubs. The version for friends and family. We shift and squeeze these identities together, trying to meet all expectations without dropping any. And we try to improve every version of ourselves to create the ultimate perfect combination. Better grades. Better time management. Better routines. But no one really talks about how tiring it is to constantly evaluate yourself like an art piece.

I don’t know if the girl in the bathroom planned to fall asleep there, but I don’t think it's important either. The girl in the stall wasn’t lazy or careless. She was exhausted.

Humans aren’t as perfectly planned as every brush stroke on a painting because life is messy. And sometimes, we just need to pause before we keep going, like how we let paint dry before adding the next layer.