Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It’s not just the body—opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I’m fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth. The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you’re used to waking up in a new one each morning. It’s the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.
These lines begin Every Day and introduce the unique circumstances of A's existence. Each morning, A wakes up in a new host body and must navigate one day living that person's life. A has no control over each host body's gender, race, location, class, or appearance, and at the end of each night, A's spirit involuntarily jumps into a new host body. With these opening lines, Levithan sets up the unique perspective of Every Day's main character and prepares the reader for the novel's structure, as each subsequent chapter follows an individual day spent in each host body.
I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else. I will never feel the pressure of peers or the burden of parental expectation. I can view everyone as pieces of a whole, and focus on the whole, not the pieces. I have learned how to observe, far better than most people observe. I am not blinded by the past or motivated by the future. I focus on the present, because that is where I am destined to live.
Although A's life as a disembodied spirit has its challenges, A has learned to appreciate the positive aspects of their unique existence. Occupying a new body each day prevents A from building lasting relationships, but it also releases A from the cumbersome burdens of people's expectations. While there are certain losses that come with this, there is also immense freedom. Throughout Every Day, A returns to these positive aspects of being a disembodied spirit, even as A's developing relationship with Rhiannon leads A to desire normalcy.
What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time create such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in déjà vu, why people believe they’ve lived past lives, because there is no way the years I’ve spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I’m feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations—all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
The love story between A and Rhiannon lies at the heart of Every Day, and these lines describe A's feelings on their serendipitous first day together. A feels an immediate, deep connection with Rhiannon, which propels A to seek out a relationship with her, regardless of how improbable the success of this relationship may be. This quote also introduces Levithan's unique use of the word "enormity" in the novel. While "enormity" usually refers to something large in size, Levithan expands upon this definition, using the term to denote the encompassing feeling of love and human connectedness.
I have been to many religious services over the years. Each one I go to only reinforces my general impression that religions have much, much more in common than they like to admit. The beliefs are almost always the same; it’s just that the histories are different. Everybody wants to believe in a higher power. Everybody wants to belong to something bigger than themselves, and everybody wants company in doing that. They want there to be a force of good on earth, and they want an incentive to be a part of that force. They want to be able to prove their belief and their belonging, through rituals and devotion. They want to touch the enormity.
A spends a day in the body of a church-going teen named Roger Wilson, which leads this reflection on the similarities of all religions. As a disembodied spirit, A has learned to seek out the ways in which all people are alike, and this commitment to seeking out similarities extends to A's views on religion. Instead of seeing differences in the ways hosts practice their own unique religions, A sees a common human need for people to feel connected to each other and to a higher power. Levithan again uses the term "enormity" here to refer to this overwhelming feeling of human interconnectedness.
It’s only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other. Yes, the differences between male and female are biological, but if you look at the biology as a matter of percentage, there aren’t a whole lot of things that are different. Race is different purely as a social construction, not as an inherent difference. And religion—whether you believe in God or Yahweh or Allah or something else, odds are that at heart you want the same thing. For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that’s different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that. The only way I can navigate through my life is because of the 98 percent that every life has in common.
One of A's defining characteristics is empathy, and these lines link together the lessons A has learned into a cohesive, empathetic personal philosophy. After occupying the bodies of many different hosts, A has come away with a sense of the deep similarities between all people, rather than the insignificant differences. In A's view, the similarities are what allow A to successfully navigate through the lives of very dissimilar people. These lines illustrate A's capacity for empathy and reveal the ways in which A's unique existence has shaped A's ability to understand all types of people.
I know it sounds like an awful way to live, but I’ve seen so many things. It’s so hard when you’re in one body to get a sense of what life is really like. You’re so grounded in who you are. But when who you are changes every day—you get to touch the universal more. Even the most mundane details. You see how cherries taste different to different people. Blue looks different. You see all the strange rituals boys have to show affection without admitting it. You learn that if a parent reads to you at the end of the day, it’s a good sign that it’s a good parent, because you’ve seen so many other parents who don’t make the time. You learn how much a day is truly worth, because they’re all so different. If you ask most people what the difference is between Monday and Tuesday, they might tell you what they had for dinner each night. Not me. By seeing the world from so many angles, I get more of a sense of its dimensionality.
After Rhiannon learns the truth about A's existence, she expresses her belief that it must be an incredibly difficult way to live. At first, Rhiannon focuses on the negative aspects of life as a disembodied spirit, and she wonders how A can find meaning when everything in A's life is constantly changing. With these lines, A challenges Rhiannon's perspective, highlighting the fact that there are several positive aspects of A's existence. Waking up in a new body each day allows for a uniquely broad perspective, as A literally sees the world through new eyes every morning. Even as the difficulties of living as a disembodied spirit intensify in the novel, A continues to believe in the power of this uniquely broad perspective.
Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over. I know how wrong this is.
After waking up in the body of depressed teen Kelsea, A reflects on the lessons they have learned through occupying the bodies of hosts who deal with mental health issues. Because A is able to experience what these issues feel like from within the bodies of the sufferers, A has a deep understanding of the strength required to live with mental health problems. This understanding helps A navigate the difficult day in Kelsea's body, ultimately leading A to find Kelsea the help she needs.
In my experience, desire is desire, love is love. I have never fallen in love with a gender. I have fallen for individuals. I know this is hard for people to do, but I don’t understand why it’s so hard, when it’s so obvious.
When A attends a pride parade in the body of Hugo, a gay host, A comes face to face with homophobic protesters. Expressing disbelief at the protesters' prejudice, A reflects on their own personal experience of sexuality, which seems to align most closely with pansexuality. With the use of the phrase "love is love," Levithan calls upon the rhetoric of the gay pride movement, aligning A with the LGBTQ community and establishing Every Day's affirmation of queer identities.
The burden I feel is the burden of responsibility, which is a tricky one to deal with. It makes me slower, heavier. But at the same time, it prevents me from floating away into meaninglessness.
Throughout Every Day, A struggles to find a balance between their feelings of responsibility to the hosts and their own personal desires. As Nathan becomes increasingly desperate for answers, A becomes more anxious and frustrated about how to deal with the situation. In these lines, however, A acknowledges the importance of this feeling of responsibility toward Nathan. Although it is a heavy burden, it also gives A's life meaning; without it, A would drift aimlessly from host body to host body, following individual desires and causing serious damage in the process.
I learned more from being her for a day than I’d learn from most people over a year. It showed me how arbitrary and individual it is, the way we experience the world. Not just that the other senses were sharper. But that we find ways to navigate the world as it is presented to us. For me, it was a huge challenge. But for her, it was just life.
When Rhiannon asks which host body was A's favorite to inhabit, A provides a surprising answer. Instead of choosing a host based on how enjoyable or easy the day was, A chooses a blind host, even though this day was incredibly difficult. As a character, A values the ability to see things from several different points of view, which makes the day spent as a blind host an invaluable experience and important lesson for A.
