I've been thinking a lot about community and life's energy lately. For the longest of time, my life has depended entirely on me. Sure, there were other people inside it, people who inspire me, but at the end of the day I face myself in the mirror and know that I, more than anyone else, support myself. It's a strong personal statement, but lately I've been thinking it might be ok, or even necessary, to let others support me. I'm molding around the question of giving my life over to other people, and letting others push and pull me until I finally find a place there. For ever my identity did not depend on my society, but only on my individuality, so that ultimately I was the force holding me up and no one could ever undermine that strength. Sensitive as I may be towards myself, there were very few people who could, in any manner, hurt me emotionally.
But when I found myself in my room behind closed doors, facing a never-ending stream of problem sets, it occurred to me that this scenario might never change unless I do something about it. I wanted to be a scientist, right? The mountains of chemical reactions, force diagrams and biological facts are just never going to go away, so I can either keep working by myself, or work with other people. I got scared thinking that I might be working alone like that for many years, and suddenly the idea of being a scientist didn't seem so appealing anymore. In that moment I missed the collaborative energy, the craziness and silliness, the happiness that abounds even when I stood and simply watched other people play. More than anything I wanted to belong in a family again (and if that family was a group of social outcasts, all the better), if only to know that there were other people living in my world than just myself. I loved the idea of taking the memories and feelings of my loved ones with me to college, and buckling down and working hard until I graduate, but maybe that's not enough. Maybe I really do need a tribe here as well as a tribe back home if I'm to survive.
So I tried talking about how I was feeling with a dorm mate over dinner. I didn't get very far, and later tonight I thought that I could have explained myself so much better than I did then. I needed to tell him that I needed to feel that I wasn't alone in the science, and that I was struggling with it not because I hated it, but because I was lonely within it. What I needed was someone to help make the science fun, someone who gets an adrenaline rush when they've solved a chemical mechanism as I do. Unlike some other professions, I didn't fall in love with science because of the people, but it's so nice to know that there are others to share my passion. At first, I wanted to avoid other people in science because I wanted to solve the problems myself, and I didn't want to feel stupid around their brilliance. Jealousy might be a good word for it. In any case, in the end, the loneliness won out and I found myself having a good time in chem office hours, attacking a problem set with speed with a group of people, and laughing about whatever other stupid things that are going on in our lives, or how stressed out we are.
Last year I started practicing my happiness muscles, and today I suddenly realize how depressive I am. Does a person become depress because they have a depressive nature to begin with? Will I overcome depression if I practice being happy? I hope so. I'm not bouncing off the walls, and I still have terrible days, even weeks, but on average, I can find that peace inside the walls of my mind. I'm also starting to notice things about myself that I would like to change in a positive way, rather than through self-criticism all the time. Rather than being hard on myself for something I am not, I'm trying to find things that I don't have to add to my character. So here's crossing fingers that I can keep going the way I am, and that there won't be too many regression.
Perhaps on that note I can switch over to thoughts on relationships. AC has a new girlfriend, and while I have promised myself to stop keeping track of how she's doing, there's a new album featuring the two of them that I absolutely adore. Two young women entirely engrossed in each other, so close, and yet the only thing separating them is an amused look of silliness. I look at these pictures and I can remember how soft another person's face felt on mine, and understand how something so simple as a silly face makes all the difference in the world between two lovers. As I scroll through to find AC's smiling face, gazing at another, something like happiness grew and that particular day was softer. About a year ago I had broken up with her, and as how I do everything, it was quick, clean, and sharp. I was insensitive, and it hurt more than anything to hear her crying on the phone, but back then I still thought that I needed to go through this college thing alone in order to find myself.
So if you can feel this, somehow, I hope you'll forgive me and remember that if only for one breath we shared, I had given you a part of my heart to hold and loved how you loved me. Even if I had wrestled that piece back from you, I hope you'll understand it's lead you to her and smile, and know that my heart was never the same after that.
And even as I scroll back through the pictures of her alone, I still remember why we don't fit. We matched, sure, the way, black goes with everything else, but we did not fit like a hand-in-glove, and it felt too soon in life to stop searching. She didn't feel it then, but maybe she does now, that I never adored her the way she needed to be loved, this girl who gave all her heart in loving. That part of her I adored, but never herself.
Oh, and before I forget, here's one more thing:
I still have to thank him for making June 2009 National LGBT Pride Month. Was it just for 2009? Perhaps so, but that makes it all the more special.
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