Ten years ago, although the specific moment eludes me, I was in seventh grade at Northwest Middle School. Unbeknownst to me, I was becoming depressed. This was around the time I started playing Everquest, the online game that made online games a viable business strategy and played a large part in prompting the creation of WoW. It swallowed my life for two years, a period where I was largely friendless (to any significant extent, anyway) and hated school. It did, in some sense anyway, make me feel wanted and needed by others in a unique way. It was something I'd always wanted, and I still find myself craving it.
High school was something a shock, both socially and academically, but with a lot of effort I adjusted. My mother and I would work, together, on papers for hours, her at the computer as I tried to construct sentences and she helped me refine them. It was an agonizing process; it's a testament to her stoicism and love for me that she put up with me. I didn't do particularly well with writing those first two years, significantly because of my deficits in middle school. But I struggled through, all the while hiding in my virtual worlds and developing into a confused, scared, angry and shy teenager (probably par for the course for most folks).
As I've written about below, I "woke up" at the beginning of my Junior year. All of the emotions I'd ignored or fled flew back at me. I started making better friends, but also started feeling miserable each day. I had an unrequited crush that tormented me. I had a significant amount of homework. Standard high school fare. I seriously focused upon suicide, using it as a defense mechanism to inoculate myself against my failures and shortcomings.
Six years ago, at about this time, I was in the hospital. I had totaled my first car on Christmas Eve. The first thought I had when it happened was "Why couldn't it have been fatal?" After having nothing turn up on the x-rays, we were called on Christmas morning and informed that I had a hole in my lung (a small one, but an pneumothorax nonetheless). I stayed in the hospital for five days with a tube the size of a garden hose stuck in the size of my chest. I threw up a lot of the painkillers and was rather weak; it scared the people who came to visit.
People did come to visit, though. Morgan, Rachel, Catherine, more. I had friends who cared. Cared more than I could (and still can) adequately appreciate. Because it's easy to rationalize affection by attributing it to guilt, to habit, to pity, to all manner of excuses because I hated myself so much, it wouldn't make sense for anyone else to like me.
I still dislike driving. I had nightmares for at least six months afterwards of car accidents (not because of the pain but because of the financial toll and the shame). I moved on. I started becoming aware of the world around me, politically. Started writing more. Moved on to Senior year. I started the Cardboard Club, where I met my first and third (of three total) girlfriends. It's also where I started to become proactive, socially, and it's honestly one of the best things I've ever done. I started my first relationship. I had my first kiss about five years and a week ago. I had my first "breakup" (although it was barely that) about four years and eleven months ago. At various points, my "best friends" (those who I talked to the most, via, of course, the internet) were seven girls two to four years younger than myself. I started learning about existentialism, started gaining an appreciation for philosophy and modern literature, started Calculus BC (still probably one of the hardest courses I've taken). I settled for UTK, to save money and because I didn't want to risk failing to do better. I graduated high school and got my first job working for my uncle in Virginia for five weeks.
I started college at UTK as a Math Major going into Secondary Education. I never took a Math class at UT. I made many new friends my first few weeks, a not insignificant number of whom I'm still close to. I was still depressed. I started counseling. I learned philosophy. I became a vegetarian. I felt guilty and self-conscious all the time (an acute case of liberal guilty coupled with my normal neuroticism and self doubt). I was blackmailed by my roommate into moving out through a blog just like this one. I returned to campus the next semester. I enjoyed the company but was still depressed. I tried a few antidepressants, unsuccessfully. I started the UTK Cardboard Club, to an acceptable amount of success. I hung out with a lot of engineers, primarily because they were nice people who didn't party but still (mostly) laughed at my jokes. I joined the Issues Committee and met more new people, older people who introduced me to accessible adulthood. I got my first B+. I started my second "relationship." I finished freshman year. I started my first non-family job, at Target. It went poorly. The relationship went worse. I had my second breakup two months after the relationship started. I quit my first job at about the same time.
I started my sophomore year more depressed than before. I was tormented after that breakup, too naive to know I needed to cut off the one I'd overcommitted to, stringing myself along on aborted hope. I obsessed over suicide. I tried it (it's hard to do responsibly in a way that won't bring a plethora of complications if you fail). I failed. I started group therapy. I loved group therapy. I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. I didn't pursue it because it would be too risky. I found postmodernism. I loved postmodernism. I will never get to teach postmodernism. I found women's studies. I found the social construction of gender. I loved the social construction of gender. It's still not a panacea.
I started writing for the Daily Beacon. I... liked writing for the Daily Beacon? I further developed my style, fleshed out my substance, learned more and more, was still miserable. I saw a girl I thought was attractive. I, incredibly awkwardly, asked her out. It didn't work out. I made breakthroughs in group therapy. I made significant progress with the relationship with my father and my self. I started my third relationship with an impetuous kiss from a girl from high school, who was still in high school. I was still very nervous. I started something closer to happiness. I was loved and loving with worries all around. I applied to be an RA at Governor's School. I was an alternate. I got in anyway. I loved it. She was there. I loved her.
My junior year. Believe it or not, I actually had to do research to find how I felt. It's tempting, I think, to get nostalgic about the time I spent in love. That's understandable when you can look at the post below from the period before and see how much of anything positive must have been a sweet respite. I wasn't happy, though. My previous livejournal is participation bias, undoubtedly, but it still reads with a lot of discomfort, dissatisfaction, anxiety, and even anger. I felt apathetic and anxious, again, much better than before, but I'm fooling myself if I say it was perfect. There was always hunger, frustration, desire. I had something to look forward to, had the reassurance of companionship, had a great deal. But happiness? No. I was content during governor's school, my social desires satiated with romance a pleasantly recurring interlude throughout. It approached complacency. I think I felt ok. But it was never "good." Never enough, never right.
I came to an aesthetic/philosophical crisis over my "art" to begin Senior year. I'd always wanted to write again, longer prose, and I feel I had some good ideas. But I couldn't find anyone to mentor me, so I had to abandon the project. Largely, too, the desire. I like writing and hope I never fully give it up. Yet I don't want to spend my life trying to measure up to a "greatness" I can't achieve. I may still harbor some ambitions, but "The Great American Novel," I hope, isn't one of them.
Otherwise, senior year progressed without much comment. I was busy. I was anxious, and disconcerted about it. I had good friends, a fact I'm appreciating more as time progresses, who were available, familiar, and "fit" me. I was stressed. And I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that, relationship aside, I was not who or what I wanted to be.
And then the summer, with thank-god Governor's School and seeing Laura every day. Still not at ease, yet closer to what I wanted than perhaps ever before. Closer to understanding.
And then the Fall, in too many senses (literal and pretentious). Afraid to go into work, anxious when not terrified, seeking solace I couldn't find, hiding instead, disillusionment crashing, myself the person I feared and hoped and crushed. And crushed, so bitterly, and giving up. And then... endurance. Grit teeth. Resolution. Endurance.
And now I'm growing. I did this to take stock, as there is a tendency to do in the somewhat arbitrary measurements of time we have. But it's also a way for me to say "I was there, then. Look how far I've come." And I think I have made progress. I've matured, no doubt. I'm not nearly as learned, in terms of reading, as I need to be, but I'm beginning to work on that. I've found a work ethic that feels good because it feels like progress, despite the work. I'm actually trying to stick with my previous post's resolution to genuinely work for happiness. How very Protestant of me.
I'll probably ruminate more later (it'd be hard to stop me). This took a long time to write, and I don't have it in me to do much more than simply be glad I have the sketch for the future. I'll leave you with a quotation I read the other day that I think reflects a lot of my values. Or, at least, where I think my values may be headed. Take care, all.
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint; therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness." -Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
High school was something a shock, both socially and academically, but with a lot of effort I adjusted. My mother and I would work, together, on papers for hours, her at the computer as I tried to construct sentences and she helped me refine them. It was an agonizing process; it's a testament to her stoicism and love for me that she put up with me. I didn't do particularly well with writing those first two years, significantly because of my deficits in middle school. But I struggled through, all the while hiding in my virtual worlds and developing into a confused, scared, angry and shy teenager (probably par for the course for most folks).
As I've written about below, I "woke up" at the beginning of my Junior year. All of the emotions I'd ignored or fled flew back at me. I started making better friends, but also started feeling miserable each day. I had an unrequited crush that tormented me. I had a significant amount of homework. Standard high school fare. I seriously focused upon suicide, using it as a defense mechanism to inoculate myself against my failures and shortcomings.
Six years ago, at about this time, I was in the hospital. I had totaled my first car on Christmas Eve. The first thought I had when it happened was "Why couldn't it have been fatal?" After having nothing turn up on the x-rays, we were called on Christmas morning and informed that I had a hole in my lung (a small one, but an pneumothorax nonetheless). I stayed in the hospital for five days with a tube the size of a garden hose stuck in the size of my chest. I threw up a lot of the painkillers and was rather weak; it scared the people who came to visit.
People did come to visit, though. Morgan, Rachel, Catherine, more. I had friends who cared. Cared more than I could (and still can) adequately appreciate. Because it's easy to rationalize affection by attributing it to guilt, to habit, to pity, to all manner of excuses because I hated myself so much, it wouldn't make sense for anyone else to like me.
I still dislike driving. I had nightmares for at least six months afterwards of car accidents (not because of the pain but because of the financial toll and the shame). I moved on. I started becoming aware of the world around me, politically. Started writing more. Moved on to Senior year. I started the Cardboard Club, where I met my first and third (of three total) girlfriends. It's also where I started to become proactive, socially, and it's honestly one of the best things I've ever done. I started my first relationship. I had my first kiss about five years and a week ago. I had my first "breakup" (although it was barely that) about four years and eleven months ago. At various points, my "best friends" (those who I talked to the most, via, of course, the internet) were seven girls two to four years younger than myself. I started learning about existentialism, started gaining an appreciation for philosophy and modern literature, started Calculus BC (still probably one of the hardest courses I've taken). I settled for UTK, to save money and because I didn't want to risk failing to do better. I graduated high school and got my first job working for my uncle in Virginia for five weeks.
I started college at UTK as a Math Major going into Secondary Education. I never took a Math class at UT. I made many new friends my first few weeks, a not insignificant number of whom I'm still close to. I was still depressed. I started counseling. I learned philosophy. I became a vegetarian. I felt guilty and self-conscious all the time (an acute case of liberal guilty coupled with my normal neuroticism and self doubt). I was blackmailed by my roommate into moving out through a blog just like this one. I returned to campus the next semester. I enjoyed the company but was still depressed. I tried a few antidepressants, unsuccessfully. I started the UTK Cardboard Club, to an acceptable amount of success. I hung out with a lot of engineers, primarily because they were nice people who didn't party but still (mostly) laughed at my jokes. I joined the Issues Committee and met more new people, older people who introduced me to accessible adulthood. I got my first B+. I started my second "relationship." I finished freshman year. I started my first non-family job, at Target. It went poorly. The relationship went worse. I had my second breakup two months after the relationship started. I quit my first job at about the same time.
I started my sophomore year more depressed than before. I was tormented after that breakup, too naive to know I needed to cut off the one I'd overcommitted to, stringing myself along on aborted hope. I obsessed over suicide. I tried it (it's hard to do responsibly in a way that won't bring a plethora of complications if you fail). I failed. I started group therapy. I loved group therapy. I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. I didn't pursue it because it would be too risky. I found postmodernism. I loved postmodernism. I will never get to teach postmodernism. I found women's studies. I found the social construction of gender. I loved the social construction of gender. It's still not a panacea.
I started writing for the Daily Beacon. I... liked writing for the Daily Beacon? I further developed my style, fleshed out my substance, learned more and more, was still miserable. I saw a girl I thought was attractive. I, incredibly awkwardly, asked her out. It didn't work out. I made breakthroughs in group therapy. I made significant progress with the relationship with my father and my self. I started my third relationship with an impetuous kiss from a girl from high school, who was still in high school. I was still very nervous. I started something closer to happiness. I was loved and loving with worries all around. I applied to be an RA at Governor's School. I was an alternate. I got in anyway. I loved it. She was there. I loved her.
My junior year. Believe it or not, I actually had to do research to find how I felt. It's tempting, I think, to get nostalgic about the time I spent in love. That's understandable when you can look at the post below from the period before and see how much of anything positive must have been a sweet respite. I wasn't happy, though. My previous livejournal is participation bias, undoubtedly, but it still reads with a lot of discomfort, dissatisfaction, anxiety, and even anger. I felt apathetic and anxious, again, much better than before, but I'm fooling myself if I say it was perfect. There was always hunger, frustration, desire. I had something to look forward to, had the reassurance of companionship, had a great deal. But happiness? No. I was content during governor's school, my social desires satiated with romance a pleasantly recurring interlude throughout. It approached complacency. I think I felt ok. But it was never "good." Never enough, never right.
I came to an aesthetic/philosophical crisis over my "art" to begin Senior year. I'd always wanted to write again, longer prose, and I feel I had some good ideas. But I couldn't find anyone to mentor me, so I had to abandon the project. Largely, too, the desire. I like writing and hope I never fully give it up. Yet I don't want to spend my life trying to measure up to a "greatness" I can't achieve. I may still harbor some ambitions, but "The Great American Novel," I hope, isn't one of them.
Otherwise, senior year progressed without much comment. I was busy. I was anxious, and disconcerted about it. I had good friends, a fact I'm appreciating more as time progresses, who were available, familiar, and "fit" me. I was stressed. And I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that, relationship aside, I was not who or what I wanted to be.
And then the summer, with thank-god Governor's School and seeing Laura every day. Still not at ease, yet closer to what I wanted than perhaps ever before. Closer to understanding.
And then the Fall, in too many senses (literal and pretentious). Afraid to go into work, anxious when not terrified, seeking solace I couldn't find, hiding instead, disillusionment crashing, myself the person I feared and hoped and crushed. And crushed, so bitterly, and giving up. And then... endurance. Grit teeth. Resolution. Endurance.
And now I'm growing. I did this to take stock, as there is a tendency to do in the somewhat arbitrary measurements of time we have. But it's also a way for me to say "I was there, then. Look how far I've come." And I think I have made progress. I've matured, no doubt. I'm not nearly as learned, in terms of reading, as I need to be, but I'm beginning to work on that. I've found a work ethic that feels good because it feels like progress, despite the work. I'm actually trying to stick with my previous post's resolution to genuinely work for happiness. How very Protestant of me.
I'll probably ruminate more later (it'd be hard to stop me). This took a long time to write, and I don't have it in me to do much more than simply be glad I have the sketch for the future. I'll leave you with a quotation I read the other day that I think reflects a lot of my values. Or, at least, where I think my values may be headed. Take care, all.
"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint; therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness." -Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
Comments (0)
Post a Comment