There is no me without you

So this is it.

The point where we've come to defy explanation, the point where I can't explain how this love makes me feel. Every morning, I wake up loving you so hard, so fast, so strong that it hurts and strains my heart. Every day, we send each other messages across digital pipelines, so many messages that my friends make fun of me, so many messages that I don't have enough space to save all of them, just the best. The sweetest. The funniest. The ones that have brightened up the dullest of days.

I can't tell you how much you have amazed me, stunned me in these past five years. In these past ten months. In the past 72 hours. In the past five years, I've believed--and not believed--in a lot of things. I've questioned the infallibility and existence of God. I've questioned science and probed its limits. I've taken apart literature and history and art. I've fallen out of love with certain books and poems, certain styles of clothing, certain topics of chemistry and literature.

But I believe in your love. I believe in our ability to be strong, to grow and prosper. I believe in your ability to put me to sleep, to rock me both like a seashell and a hurricane, to make me a better human being, to make me cry with your beautiful words and perfect kisses, to warm my cold nose with your warm cheek. I believe in your love, in your tenderness, in the gentleness of your hand swooping around my back to hold me up. I believe in your commitment to my mental health, to my chosen career path, to my desire to one day have children and way too many pets.

I promise you this: we are not infallible, but there is no denying the existence of our love. I will never question it, from now until I die. I have probed it, and found it has no limits. My sickness and my commitment to it above all things threated to take us apart, but there was no falling out of love with you.

These past five years have been incredibly beautiful, incredibly fun, incredibly crazy in more ways than one. Some of it has been fucked-up. Some of it has been perfect. All of it has been so real.

We've lived apart for about half of our time together, but I know you're never far from me. I know that this five years is just an intricate prelude to a resounding symphony, for there is no me without you.

The Strong (but not silent) Type

People you've been before
That you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still.
[Elliot Smith]

A year ago, or so, I read a very interesting article in the New York Times about resilience. The article was discussing a "resiliency" gene, a genetic trait that makes its bearers more likely to rise up to overcome personal tragedy. The article followed a pair of sisters who had both been sexually abused for an extended period of time. While one of them went on to lead a fairly successful life, the other one seemed to flounder and become lost. When tested, the first had the resiliency gene, and the second did not.

The idea that an aspect of our personal strength can come from our genes is amazing, simply mind boggling. However, like most things attributed to genetics, there is obviously a large contribution from environment as well. One of the questions in our Darkness to Light training was to the effect of "Describe a time as a child that you lost power. Describe how it made you feel." My answer was about my own abuse, but I am curious to know what others put. Looking back on my life, I can't think of a lot of times when I did show personal strength. Kid wants to bully you all through the fifth grade? Sure, why not let him? People want to cheat off of your paper in middle school, your freshman year of high school? Sure--they're bound to fall off sometime from their own lack of knowledge, right? I spent a lot of time as a youngster thinking that it wasn't my job to set things right--that the universe, or God, would tip things into my favor if I just sat back and waited.

However, I never quite grew out of these tendencies. They continued through most of college. I didn't fight the decision to fire me from my job, although now the people who fired me admit that they were wrong. I didn't fight my parents the first time they implied that they thought I wasn't bipolar, that this therapist bit was a waste of money. I didn't fight the people who pushed me around, who didn't respect me, who used me for grades and homework help without contributing anything positive to my life. A year ago, I described myself as someone who was not strong, and I wore that like a definition, a really fucked-up and detracting feather in my fucked-up hat.

A year later, a year different, a beautiful world of different. I'm coming into my own strength, and it feels awesome. It started when I insisted on going back to therapy, on going to testing--no matter what it cost--to figure out what the fuck was wrong with my brain. And it has only improved since then. Today, I had a decently lengthy talk with my community preceptors about all the ways in which Darkness to Light training made me furious. I left feeling empowered, like my anger and defiance was going to change something. Tonight, my tutoring group continued to be far too large, much larger than it is supposed to be, and I refused to go to lab with them. I don't deserve to be shoved into a clusterfuck of people where I can't learn. Instead, I studied radiographic anatomy with Thomas, and we went to the lab later. There, I was able to talk things out, and I came out with a world's [or abdomen's] worth of knowledge that I probably would have glazed over if I had gone with my tutoring group. Add to that knowledge my hour spent with radiology and a cup of strong coffee: I had a good night.

So, why the change? What has made the difference, has slowed and reversed an entire lifetime of inability to say what I felt? Well, first--I have this one amazing guy in my life, this perfect sweet boyfriend who has always insisted on giving me what I need. The respect and love he has always given me, that I have only perhaps in the last year come into full appreciation of, is the only impetus I really need to know that I am a person with feelings and needs that must be met. The other day, he was so supportive and assertive when I was upset with the training, and his words to me, so simple and perfect, "I'm confident that you will be strong enough to do what needs to be done" were all I needed to know that much was true.

There are compounding factors, too. First, I've gotten rid of the detractors in my life, the people who didn't respect my feelings, the people who ran over me while I tried my damnedest to please them. I've added to my life some extraordinarily positive people, funny wonderful people who assert that I don't deserve to have to try to see over 20 people in my own fucking tutoring group, who encouraged me to take my Darkness to Light concerns to higher powers. These are the people I've always needed in force in my life, who I had in tastes but needed in droves. The people who may scare the shit out of me in haunted jails, who may yell about olives and love alphabet books about small children meeting hazardous ends and poke me in class, but who will be there to pick me up and take me home and to accompany me to Disney on Ice. The people who will read me to sleep, no questions asked. The person who will tuck me in and toss and turn and tell me that it's alright, that I am stronger than I ever thought I was.

From Darkness to...something else

Well, I fought with a stranger, and I met myself;
I opened my mouth and I heard myself.
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself;
yes, I could have made it easier on myself.
-Dixie Chicks, "The Long Way Around"

I got angry the other day during our Friday lecture. Really angry. White hot, felt like I would burst, wanted to leave the room angry. Then I got upset and frustrated. Then angry again--I'm still angry when I think about it.

The class in question is ALWAYS a mess. Always. No one ever knows what's going on--not the students, not the preceptors, not even the administration, it seems. Our questions are usually met with confused looks on the faces of those we ask. We go into almost everything blindly. But I really thought it would be different this time.

But of course, I was met with the same problems we always have. A perpetual loss of function of IT equipment. The inexplicable speaker noise giving way to the ambient noise of a local radio station. A swift and steady loss of focus from my huge class, and the frustration of a staff trying to talk over the ambient noise and dysfunctional IT equipment. Trying to facilitate earnest and deep conversation about the subject in a lecture hall, in a group of 150 people. Too little intimacy. Too little seriousness. Wrong words at bad times. And one very angry me.

I have no question as to why it infuriated me. It made me mad because I wanted it to be so much more than it was, maybe even more than it could be. I wanted all of these medical students to care about this issue as much as I care about it. I wanted to get past how we can't believe all these shitty statistics. I wanted people to understand the hurts of the people giving the testimonies on the videos because I want people to understand my hurt.

When it comes to child sexual abuse, understanding it not the easiest goal to achieve, but it is the most important. It's more than some "light a candle, let it go" bullshit. I can't sit around like all of those people who say things like "I refuse to become a statistic." I was made a statistic. I am a statistic. I had no choice. I want to prevent other children from becoming statistics, and I want my classmates to understand that the best thing they can ever do for a child in this world is to prevent the propagation of child sexual abuse. But this lesson was marred and broken, just like that. No problem.

During the video, they kept interviewing the "survivors" of child abuse. But I don't want to be called a survivor. It wasn't something I fought for. I don't think many--maybe not any--children in that situation fight. Because they can't. Because they're scared. Because they are victims. Then, they talked so much about speaking up for children, and I couldn't help ask myself, "How can I speak up for these other kids if I can't speak up for myself. How can I, at the age of 22, not speak up for myself, and still expect an abused child to speak up for him or her self. If I still refuse to tell my parents, my family about it, then how do I proceed, feeling fake and ashamed for not being able to open my mouth?"

There lies the double-edged sword--feeling so ashamed to talk about it when you are young. Feeling so ashamed for not talking about it when you are older.

And the worst: hearing other people talk about it in the locker room, to hear future doctors question the point of all of this. Putting on my clothes, I heard them talking, "I don't know why we had to be there two hours for something that they could have told us in ten minutes. You can get training on the website, I wonder why we didn't do that." Etcetera.

So, now, here I am, angry again. Angry because this was so poorly executed when it could have been so functional, so meaningful, so damned motherfucking important in a smaller, more put-together setting. Angry because the cause seemed lost on a part of my generation of doctors. Angry at myself for not being able to talk, not being able to tell, and for worrying that I may always be a victim, that it's not possible to be a survivor.

Repair Manual for 1991 Buick LeSabre: Summer/Fall 2007 Edition

Problem: Car starts to shake when going up inclines.
Solution: Ignore.

Problem: Car is stolen from street directly outside of bedroom window.
Solution: Call cops. Vehemently deny parking car while intoxicated. Look like a dumbass because you have no idea what day you last saw your car. Call mother, who laughs hysterically at your plight.

Problem: Car is found by police and taken to a tow lot.
Solution: Leave car in tow lot until next paycheck, when it costs more than $200 to get it released to you.

Problem: Broken ignition from theft.
Solution: Allow tow lot to repair. Wait two weeks for repair. Get the run-around each time you call, at noon, for fourteen days.

Problem: Broken window from theft.
Solution: Scotch-tape trash bag to window.

Problem: Trash bag flaps too much on the interstate.
Solution: Remove trash bag, leave window open.

Problem: Humidity from rampant rain undoes all adhesive on the cloth covering the roof of the car. It falls while you are merging onto the interstate.
Solution: Return it to its rightful place using a Scunci hair tie and a mechanical pencil.

Problem: Car's only cup holder breaks off of armrest.
Solution: Use bag of sugar that is inexplicably in armrest to steady cups. Eventually, humidity from rampant rain causes sugar crystals to adhese, making a fully functional sugar cup holder.

Problem: Car decides to stop while idling in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Repeats six times in an hour.
Solution: Learn to hold down brake with left foot and gas with right foot while idling. Except in Starbuck's Drive Thru, where you let the car shut down for the sake of sentimental value.

Problem: Douchebag neighbor parks too far from the tree. In trying to wedge yourself into the so-not-a-parking space he left for you, catch side paneling in the gate. While backing up, listen helplessly as gate pushes side paneling from back passenger-side door to front passenger-side door. Park car on the street and hope that someone will steal it again.
Solution: Upon returning to find your car still on the street, open back door until paneling falls off. Put it back on with two of the four remaining connector piece. Revel in how it almost looks like it should.

Problem: Back door malfunctions and ceases to trigger the "door closed" light sensor. Car battery dies.
Solution: Buy jumper cables, and get roommate to jump your car off. Fix broken door sensor with paper towel and scotch tape.

Any Undivided Attention Given is a Form of Prayer

I catch a lot of (honestly well-intentioned) hell around here--and by around here, I mean at the lunch table--for my unwillingness to give up my lab work during the semester. Although I sometimes may complain about having to physically go to my lab, I enjoy being there. And it's not just because of the people [although the people are a big bonus]. I like going there because I like feeling a personal connection to my work--I like knowing what's going on. Hell--I even like not knowing what's going on, as long as I am being proactive in figuring it out.

It makes perfect sense to me that, amidst this constant clusterfuck of new information that I can't learn in any depth, that I don't--as Joe puts it--have any real connection to, I would want to be in a place where I do understand what is going on, where I do have some ownership of the process and even of the space.

But it goes beyond that, and far into the recesses of nerddom.

Honestly, I love the peace of the lab, of mixing buffers and changing settings on the instruments. There are few places here--and probably on earth--where my mind is clearer than here. It has been said, by me even, that I am a mess--but lab is the only place where I don't feel that way. I am so careful in lab, washing my glassware, filling the MilliQ water, injecting samples and cleaning my syringe. I am a fastidious mopper of water and chemicals, and my lab space is much cleaner and organized than my bedroom will ever be.

I love surveying the space of my tabletop, seeing the shelves of chemicals and buffers that belong to me, that I have made. I love seeing my handwriting on labels and remembering the hours poured, seriously lovingly, into making them. I love finding the right size of screwdriver or allen wrench, and I love using those tools to dismantle and reassemble my HPLC. I've spend two summers in this lab, and I look forward to spending the parts and wholes of six more years here. I find it comforting.

As much of a hassle as it can be, I also love going to anatomy lab. The joy there is different--I like my lab group, and I find the subject, honestly, more fascinating than frustrating. I love connecting what I "learn" in lectures to real humanity, but most of all, I love the look on the professors' faces when they survey the bodies before them, place their hands inside, and start looking for structures. I feel a beautiful sort of connection with them as they survey their lives' work, smiling as if they've found home.

The Color of Memory

I've been sleeping a lot these last few days. I'm not talking "Oh, it's good that you're getting enough sleep." I'm talking sleep-for-seven-hours-at-night-and-take-a-three-hour-nap. I'm talking in terms of actual cravings for sweet delicious sleep. I'm talking can't-convince-myself-to-get-out-of-bed sleep.

This happens sometimes, and each time it happens, it's a little scary. Sleep is--and has always been--the key to determining and watching my bipolar disorder. Too little sleep: mania. Too much sleep, this actual craving for sleep: depression. But I'm not depressed. No unexpected inexplicable crying jags, no lack of motivation, no annoying black ring around my vision.

I will never forget the first time I was depressed, because it was so unusual, so unexpected, so fucking weird. On an otherwise normal Friday night, I had watched Requiem for a Dream, finished the movie, laid down and promptly cried into thin air for the better part of an hour, completely unprovoked. Requiem for a Dream is, by all accounts, a devastatingly sad movie, but I wasn't crying because of the movie. I had no idea why I was crying. I just felt desperate.

I remember feeling out of touch for the next few days, participating in the motions of my daily life, doing--even--enjoyable activities. But at night, this heavy burdening sadness came over me, and the sadness was oppressive.

As vividly as I remember falling into depression, so vividly do I remember coming out of that first spell, driving down the road to Greenwood in Shawn's car and feeling--inexplicably--happy again. I thought the worst was over. Of course, it wasn't--and it wouldn't be over for almost three years, when I would finally describe this depression as "pervasive and noticeable" to the man who diagnosed me as bipolar.

I believe like hell in the science of medication, in taking a pill to make your brain feel better. I believe in it because I have to--not just because it is a significant part of my chosen profession, but because it is my life. Some people around me--even some who are such big supporters of this blog--worried that my medicine would take away my creative life and my emotions, and no one worried about that possibility more than me.

Luckily, I have found that my medicine does the opposite of that, freeing my emotions and making my creative life a more pure representation of my personality, of the things that are important to me, and of the things in which I find unspeakably boundless beauty. I can cry about the things that are truly sad, like losing friends and having misunderstandings, because I no longer cry about the things that don't deserve tears, like having to wake up and face the people I love the most. I don't have to take breaks from life to sit in the bathroom with my head leaned against the stall, sucking my thumb and crying because it's just too hard for me to look at people. I am no longer careful to slip some comforting object in my pocket to carry with me so I can constantly touch it and remind myself that it's not too long before I can be back in bed, cradled in sheets and ignoring the world. I am fully engaged in my life, in the people I know, in my friendships and my relationship. My boyfriend no longer has to deal with the hassle of a sad disconnected girlfriend who calls him crying for no damned reason at all. Things are easier, and things are better.

This sleepiness, this soporific heaviness of my eyelids will pass, and will pass quietly with no bang, no sudden realization that life is okay. The sun will not shine more brightly, nor will some huge burden be lifted from my shoulders. My memory of these days in my life will be no different color from those before or after them, no black X over these minutes, hours, days. This sleepiness is a remnant, an artifact of my old life, a connection to black memories that I am all too thankful I am not living now, a reminder that what was almost lost has now been found.

October air reminds me of all the seasons of your love

I used to hate fall with the vehement passion one generally reserves for slow drivers and people who bring 14 items into the 10-Items-or-Less line. I hated the slow drip into cold weather, the slide into those gray days of December and January. But I think I hated it because I was ignoring what was really happening--those crisp beautiful days when the sun is shining behind a cool breeze, when I can drive with my windows down and the heat on. The days when a light jacket is just enough to get me by, when it's too cool for the tank tops that didn't prevent sweating in the summer, too warm for the pea coats, scarves, and hats I know I will soon need. A couple of years ago, however, when I was driving to Kaplan every weekend, I suddenly started noticing the fall leaves on the back roads [the same roads that magically bring the smell of wisteria in the spring], and the past couple of days, Joey and I have been talking so much about how we love this beautiful fall weather. At night, the skies are becoming brighter, and I am looking forward to those bell-clear winter stars I get to see with a boy who will be able to tell me all about them.

This weekend, while at home, I retrieved all of my fall and winter clothes, and I have been folding and putting them up for the better part of an hour. This is another thing I love about fall: I forget, really, about all of the clothes I have, and I love folding them and putting them up, and smelling them, and thinking about all of the good memories I have with them. I unpacked the shirts that Allison and I both own, and I laughed because we never really change--yesterday, we went shopping, and she picked out a shirt that I desperately wanted as well. I unpacked jackets that I wore to formals, and things I have owned since high school, and most importantly, my Free Agent hoodie.

When Joey and I first met, he rode BMX with a group of his miscreant friends. His mom had made him the hoodie for Christmas, and he loved it. Unfortunately for him, I was in love with it too. I made all kinds of excuses to sneak it away from him whenever I could, and he usually obliged and let me wear it. One of my favorite "us" memories is from our first Thanksgiving. We had been dating for about a month, and we were very new to the idea of being together and loving each other in every possible way. I remember very clearly this: the two of us sitting on the couch in his room, and I was wearing nothing but his Free Agent hoodie and a pair of underwear, and I felt so warm and so safe and so ridiculously in love.

A little less than a year later, when I moved to college, Joey and I put boxes of things together for each other to have. With my box came the Free Agent hoodie, sprayed with his Curve cologne, and the first week, I fell asleep in it every night, cranking up the AC in my room just so I could fall asleep wearing a hoodie in August. I've been wearing it, all winter long, ever since that August.

The hoodie is no longer all fuzzy inside, and it's a little dingy now, but I love it more than any other item of clothing I own, because it's mine, because it reminds me of Joey in a way that even Curve cologne can't, and because it makes me feel so warm, so safe, and so ridiculously in love.