Embracing Sadness

Sadness is poetic. You're lucky to live sad moments...Because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has antibodies, it has happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness...The thing is, because we don't want that first bit of sad, we push it away with a little phone or a jack-off or the food. You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel kinda satisfied with your product, and then you die..."
 - Louis C.K. (x)


A lot has happened in the past few months. "A lot" may even be somewhat of an understatement. 
I was single. I changed my mind and grasped at the frayed ends of an unraveling relationship. I was single again.

I strengthened friendships. I entered new friendships. I hugged friends goodbye as our paths diverged.
After four years of mingled tears and laughter, I graduated.

I was offered a job. I turned it down. I applied to 50+ other jobs.  I waited. I cried. And with each passing week, I felt my confidence waver. Seven months after I sent out my first resume and cover letter, I was offered another job. I accepted.

And through all of this, I can't say that I ever sat down and processed all that has transpired. The truth is, I am afraid to embrace the sadness. During the last week of my undergraduate career, I stayed up until 2-3AM every night hanging out with friends, desperate to wring out every good moment before it was time to say goodbye for what may very possibly be forever. And on that last night, as I perched on the Johns Hopkins sign with my friends and stared up into the night sky scanning for shooting stars, I couldn't shake the feeling that the sadness which had been my shadow in those final moments had finally caught up.

Though I am painfully aware of the void that my friends' presence, jokes, and laughter left behind, I wouldn't give up a single memory to mitigate the pain -- not a single area meeting, late-night office study session, karaoke road trip to the mall, NERF dart to the face, disappointed Sunday at Chick-Fil-A,  empty moscato bottle, drunken crotch grab, piece of naan at Tambers/Kumari, workout in Wolman, chicken wing from PJs on Monday, soju bomb, or midnight chicken nugget. (My memories, it seems, are dominated by food.)

However sad I am that we will never again live in world where there is always havoc to be wreaked on the first floor, I remain grateful for having been a part of that experience.

To grow is to change and to change is to both embrace the sadness that comes with loss and anticipate the happiness that accompanies new things. So as I brace myself for the start of my first full-time job, marking my entry into the real world, I remind myself: growth is good.

Spring Break Musings

It never really hits me that break is over until I have to re-set all my alarms. This break feels particularly short since I hardly left campus. I was snowed in for a day, volunteered at Shepherd's for another two, and with my HPCA deadline looming in the near future, there was hardly any break to be had. I have had to write quite a few essays this week, and it made me realize that it has been a long time since I had written anything of substance. In fact, it's been a long time since I've even read anything of substance. When was the last time I picked up a book for the simple pleasure of reading? 

For the past few months, I felt like I've been fading. It's a re-occurring thought I have, a question really, but "Who am I?" or "Who have I become?" I hardly recognize myself anymore. Sometimes I'm bitter. Sometimes I'm just depressed. There are days when people bring out the worst in me, and still others when my friends bring out more than what I thought I had to offer. I'm sickeningly grateful for the people who have been placed into my life. My friends, my family. They stabilize me when all I want to do is throw myself down onto the rocks and call it quits.

I'm at a crossroads now. Graduation is coming up and I don't know where I'll be in a few months. I may be in Baltimore, working as a front desk manager at Shepherd's Clinic. I may be in San Francisco, working as a study coordinator at UCSF. Or I could be jobless, penniless, sitting at home in San Jose, suffocating in a self-created vacuum, devoid of ambition. We shall see. All I know is, I filled out this goddamn HPCA, so I better be on track to go to medical school in a year. Christ.

I need something to work for again. :\