The most immediate example are the strangers who are digging giant holes in my front yard. I’ve given up asking why they are there. Maybe they’re updating water pipes? The internet? Maybe they just like digging holes? I wish they’d also build us a new deck and fix the back stairs while they’re at it, but they seem to like holes the best.

I just wave as I go to work, which is always under construction. Last summer the noise was located just on the other side of my non-soundproofed wall. I’m sure the jack hammers have contributed to the feeling that the project has been going on for years. I’m an advisor and my main job is helping students. The racket made for some interesting appointments.

“I’M SORRY ABOUT ALL THE NOISE! I’d yell.

“NO PROBLEM! They’d yell back.

“I THINK YOU SHOULD TAKE ENGLISH 1010!”

“WHAT?”

“ENGLISH! 1010! HERE!” pointing at the paper. 

Between shouting and pantomime, we’d get it figured out but the worst was when I had to deliver bad news. Generally, I like to do this gently and with as much encouragement as I can.

But, during those months, a gentle voice was impossible and long conversations difficult. I’d try to smile and at least look comforting. Mostly, I looked and sounded deranged. 

“YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE YOUR SCHOLARSHIP!!!” I’d shriek, waving my arms toward the computer.

Construction wouldn’t be so bad, if only it wasn’t so endless. Back in the day, my parents helped me pack up the old station wagon and drove me from Salt Lake City to Provo to go to college. I remember the construction around the Point of the Mountain and feeling like my adventure was about to begin.

Many years later, we packed up considerably more stuff and made the same drive to take our daughter to college. I was feeling teary, but there, at the point of the mountain, was the exact same construction that had once greeted me; and I swear the same traffic cones were there too. I was comforted by this. Just like the roadwork, my girl would always be there even if I didn’t see her every day.

One of the longest construction projects ever was the Cologne cathedral in Germany. That took 600 years, which is lightning compared to the Great Wall of China which took about 2,000 years.

I got to visit the Cologne Cathedral on my honeymoon. It’s truly beautiful, but the architectural wonders were overshadowed by our guide. We spent half of the tour trying to figure out what language she was speaking. We thought it wasn’t French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian or an Asian language. Was it something more unusual like Norwegian?

At last we figured it out: English! She was speaking English! This did not help us at all during the rest of the tour, but it did make this cathedral stand out from among the hundreds of others we saw. At the time we laughed at our bewilderment, not knowing that bewilderment would be a permanent state of mind as we journeyed through life together. Apparently, being human means being in a constant state of personal construction.

This morning, we invited a stranger into our home for some repairs. This is not a nostalgic experience at all. Did I say I was feeling nostalgic about construction? That’s ridiculous. We just barely got the garage door fixed. It looks like home repairs, like construction, like taxes and weeds and cat hair and irritation are here to stay. 

Anneli Byrd is an academic adviser in Weber State University’s General Studies and Exploratory advising.