body

Maybe it's anatomy, or running in the mornings, or Body Worlds tomorrow, or talk of organ donations, or M & A's resolutions to gym & hot yoga it up in the new year, or Mike S's musings on naked parties, or something completely unrelated...but I've been thinking a lot about my body. I've mentioned before that my body is pretty aware of me--it inevitably responds to my stress and anxiety in the form of rashes, canker sores, sleep deprivation, exhaustion. On my end, I haven't been too good at reciprocating, haven't paid much attention to my body. I make observations and pick up on the details, but I don't consider it like I do other aspects of myself. Like Aud says, I'm too self-aware...which is true, and also paradoxically the reason I become blind to certain things. So this is going to turn out to be a pretty superficial and self-centered entry, but I suppose most my and blog entries are.

Mike mentioned that at naked parties (okay, I'd never even heard of those until this conversation), you see that every body has its imperfections. I thought that was an interesting insight to have during a naked party and made me think on what I try to hide and what I value. I feel lucky to have been in environments and around people that make me loving of even those things I hide, of those fragilities. It makes the imperfections things that I seek to describe, understand, articulate.

Since running at home, I've confirmed that my feet are abnormally sensitive. Some people think all feet are unattractive, but I don't think that's true. I think it's definitely true of mine. They blister really easily, especially on the sole below my big toe, and my heels have a coarse quality more typical of someone who actually is physically active. They remind me of my dad's, except my dad stood 14 hour days and I bum like no other. And the nails on my toes just grow awkwardly.

My skin in general doesn't stay healthy for long; it dries easily because I love really hot water in the shower and probably because I was born that way. The skin that comprises the boundary between fingernail and fingertip is really sensitive to cold and sometimes cracks so that I bleed. I'm not very good at moisturizing either. While I like my hands in general, they're not attractive either. I can't keep my nails long or even nicely trimmed or maintained, because I have this habit of peeling them, which everyone thinks is disgusting and I find soothing.

Besides shying away from letting a significant other's feet touch mine and discover their lack of appeal, I hesitate to shed the shorts over a bathing suit on the beach. I've gotten used to the fact that my thighs (and calves) are bigger (the few people I've mentioned this to scoff, so to clarify, I mean--proportionally to the rest of me, okay, not absolutely). I actually kind of appreciate that now (the thighs, not so much the calves--which I'm also not really fond of because of how my skin gains a spotty quality there). I appreciate them because it's the little thought I think to myself and fold in my hands whenever someone comments on me being too small or thin. I keep it for me and then feel no urge to defend myself. But anyway so the hesitation isn't due to that; it's because I developed the inevitable stretch marks early on, before I even knew it was normal and was kind of freaked out by them. So those are there. Probably forever.

I've grown out my hair the longest it's ever been, and the tangles that arise because I don't brush my hair become particularly apparent when I'm at home and there's no conditioner to smooth them out. When I was little I never brushed my hair. When it got so tangled that my mom forced me to brush, the brush got stuck in my hair and that was a mess. I swear that ever since then, that spot in my hair grows in tangled--even after cutting it and growing back as new hair, it gets impossibly tangled in that one spot, becomes a ball of uncombable string.

Some of these things never bothered me, a few I grew to accept on my own, others were loved and cared for in a way that comforted and reassured.

My favorite bone is the clavicle, because it's what I like most on myself, the way you can feel it and how it's the most easily fractured bone in the body. I especially like where the clavicles meet, the hollow beneath your neck...which I learned in anatomy is unromantically called the sternal notch. It's an actual space, and you can press into it and feel its texture and contours different from the bones leading into it.

As much as people tell you appearances don't matter, I think senses do. Feeling the cold sole of worn feet against thick calves when you cross your legs, running ragged fingertips along an arm to relieve an itch, tugging on that mass of messy hair when you have to stop being a homebody and go out in public, holding or being held by that hollow when you are vulnerable and loving. It can be as much you as those things inside.

anastomoses

I used to think that fiction would bring about my downfall, but am finding that scientific fact is contributing too. Each offers a glimpse of beauty whose existence I appreciate and consequently strive to possess, but can't quite create for myself.

Everyone here turns to me when they want to know in what context the word "satiate" can be used or which Shakespeare play "Get thee to a nunnery" is from or what some eight-letter word means. I've almost never been able to give an accurate or complete answer. I would like to explain to everyone that for me, studying literature means only appreciation, not expertise. We speak the same language; I don't know any secrets. I can't verbalize myself any better than you--I'm probably worse at it because I value all the feelings and know none of the constructs.

On the other end of the spectrum, Aud says that I'm already using a different language now that I'm in medical school (something everyone warns you about). Three months of massive amounts of material and learning later, I find myself with a new vocabulary but little fluency. I know a lot of multisyllabic words but don't expect me to tell you a story.

"Kafka on the Shore" alternates chapters between two narrators whose stories appear disparate and converge as the novel goes on. A familiar device, but Murakami is aware of its contrived nature. He makes us conscious that he's conscious of it. We grow to understand that the point is not that this kind of connection actually exists. In fact, the out-of-reality happenings remind us that this doesn't happen and won't happen. The point is we can substantiate our underlying desire for connection in fiction. Murakami never confirms the connection, never actually says that this could happen, but nudges us and says, but doesn't it make sense to happen this way? Isn't it beautiful this way, doesn't it hurt in that lovely aching way and make you breathe slightly irregularly?

In anatomy we hear "anastomosis" over and over. Two arteries start from the same source (the aorta), branch off and become different things (the posterior and anterior intercostal arteries), then these different things come back and converge. So it does happen in a concrete thing, and it makes sense, and it's beautiful in how it works. Every part of the body is related to another, and it is a system of connections that keeps you breathing so you can tell when someone like Murakami comes along and makes you breathe offbeat.

But that's a body and that's a book, and this is me.

the family you choose

Last week, late Saturday night, I brought some cookies to Bibhav's room and we were chatting when Don came by and told us that there was free food downstairs at Marigold's. We were enticed by his plate of rice and chicken, so we got Guson and went to get some. There were three long foil trays filled with rice, pork and chicken. I started eating and thought I'd bring back a plate of leftovers for the next day. Guson then says, why don't we take all the trays back. I ask him where we're going to put all this food. He thinks we can fit it in my fridge. My microfridge which can't hold a carton of milk unless it's lying sideways. He's convinced. We each take a tray up to my room. For the next hour we take apart the shelves in my fridge, fold the trays every which way, take out some rice, put the tray back in to see it not fit, take out some more rice. Guson works at this patiently and oblivious to the ridiculous nature of his effort, while Bibhav grows tired and curls up on the linoleum floor to nap, and I stare in wonder at the whole episode.

Somehow it fits, and the boys promptly arrive for lunch the next day with Jen to help us out. We eat the leftovers for four meals: take out the foil trays, scoop heaps of food onto plastic plates, stuff the trays back in, clean the rice that's spilled onto the floor, transfer food from plate to plate since only one of them is microwaveable, heat them until our plastic plate cracks, wash the disposable ones that still work, divide the heaps, pick at the bones, finish each other's food. Sometimes we supplement the meal with tea whose leaves occupy most of the cup volume because we don't use a strainer, or maple candy, or burnt cookies. Somewhere along the continuum of this ritual, we form a family in which I am the mom, Bibhav is the silly kid, Guson is the grumpy grandpa, and Jen is the auntie.



***
A representative conversation:

B: When's dinner?
G: I'm eating Marigold's.
K: Haha, I TOLD you you wouldn't finish the leftovers. If other people want leftovers let me know but otherwise maybe it'd be good to save for when we have everyone since it takes work to heat and wash. Is that okay Grandpa? Whoever Grandpa is.
B: Doesn't look like there is much choice Mommy. Fine. Eating with Grandpa it is. Stupid Grandpa.
G: Don't disrespect your elders, whippersnapper.
B: Sorry. Nice to see you have accepted your position though.
G: I was telling Kim the other day that, technically, this means I'm her daddy (ooo)
J: You could be the paternal grandfather, you know.
K: I told Jen you all are adopted. I don't know where the grandpa came from. He just arrived one day and stayed.
G: There is no father in this family. Bibhav is a bastard.
B: Adopted bastards are cool. Uninvited grandpas who won't leave and moreover, are Korean, are not cool.
G: Grandpas who steal booze and trays of Indian food are cool.
B: Shut up Guson.
Blogger: synaesthesia - Create Post

***
I love my family.

thank you

Every blog seems to have an obligatory list of things to be thankful for, not necessarily always at Thanksgiving. I've never made a public one, mostly because I often write when I'm happy for something and I assume that comes across. Lately though I've been feeling a bit of an ache. While there has been as much to be happy for as always, instead of appreciating those things, I've entertained that ache more than I'd like. So here's to being grateful (though nowhere near adequately) instead of self-pitying (whose threshold of validity has been surpassed long ago).



I am glad for:

public transportation
It's not so alarming to get lost on a subway, because there are really only so many places to go and there is one map with solid lines and colors and only so many directions. You have little responsibility once you get on except to remember when to get off. I spent a fourth of my time in Chicago on trains and buses, and walking short distances, and count all of it as seeing the city. Thank you for keeping me still and taking me places.

things that keep you warm
Tea. How the flavors can be a intricate mix of spices and things but still taste smooth and simple, and thereby, comforting. How it holds lovely things like milk and honey and sugar. Fireplaces, books by the fireplace, and winter music like RHCP's By The Way and Radiohead's In Rainbows and The Cure's Disintegration. Large groups of people you love in one place. Coffeeshops. Winter accessories that you lose, mourn, and never quite replace. Blankets borrowed from friends. Hot pies.

the uniqueness of people
As I re-meet old friends and make new ones, I find each one to be irreplaceable. It's overwhelming to think of what each one offers, how each person gives me something different and compels to give them something different. I miss my friends from home. I miss how Victoria is part of home, how Aud understands my introversion, how Tanvi laughs at everything and makes me laugh at everything, how Kristina speaks with a fiery passion that somehow brings out her core gentle kindness, how Sarah lets me be whatever I feel like. I miss my college friends. I miss Andrea's questions and listening, Jackie's genuine caring of everyone, Jen's sensibility to things around her, Amy's honesty, Melkis's quick propensity to laugh and cry, Steph's warmth, Chris's elusiveness, Henry's love which he extends so naturally, Frank's contagious positivity, Courtney's love of quality things like NYC and coffee. Hi Albert, I miss you too and your empathy. On Thanksgiving break I missed my classmates--Allison squatting in my room and how easy it is to talk to her about whatever, Bibhav's silliness cheering me without fail, Don's nightly milk stops and how he seems to appreciate those few minutes, how Guson both echoes my thoughts and makes me consider new things, Macdale's tangible humor, my awesome PCC group. And everyone I see in class and don't even talk to regularly, I missed them too. Thank you for Andy and Connie and Gina who I saw in Chicago and make me think once people enter your life they stay in some form. And I miss you; I think I will always miss you. You are in everything beautiful, and there is much beautiful.

having things to miss
Thank you for things and people so worthwhile that I consciously miss them.

yale
Thank you for keeping me busy and fulfilled but not too stressed, for being an unexpected fit. You're not without your flaws but neither am I and I think we understand each other okay. Thank you for making me feel this is a privilege and that I need to keep deserving it each day, and understanding when I can't quite do it because I'm a bum. Thank you for the amazing financial aid that makes me fear less postgraduate debt and gives me some leeway to pursue what I want.

loves
Thank you for the joys and pains of the first, and for the formless idea of an unknown second. Thank you for the constant ones: Mom, Dad, Hoang, Bao, Duy and Binh (all the names for those of you who try to remember those brothers of mine)--for how I don't have to miss you because you always feel close.

my memory
I know it makes me think too much and things linger longer than they should and it makes things hard for me. But thank you for letting me keep everything in one place.



I feel the need to say thank you rather than to just give thanks, just because it's nice to think of directing all this toward someone/something. To think that there's something out there enveloping the thanks we give, like the catcher in the rye that Holden Caufield imagines catching those bodies as they're thrown. Some things for you to catch.

afternoon

It was a mildly cold, sunny day and after just two hours of class, lunch and errands, a long Monday afternoon stretched its limbs for me to follow. I packed my bookbag and walked down York Street with Radiohead's newest because I'm addicted; it's so delicious. The up and down I routinely take on York reminds me of how we felt like we'd been in Luang Prabang (Laos) forever because there's one main street and we walked it multiple times a day. The intersection with Elm Street reminds me a little of Cambridge, with Au Bon Pain on the corner and the expanse of brick becoming evident as you stand in the middle, a triangular intersection on your left and half of a cross on your right. I saw several girls wearing brown knee high boots. I have fond memories of Amy and I finding ours for $30 at a Nine West outlet in Atlantic City.

I went to Koffee Too to study. I don't like its structure--two adjacent rectangles separated by a wall--as much as Koffee which has two adjacent squares flowing into one another (more angles but open ones so that it feels like one big place with lots of corners). I usually choose it over Koffee for proximity's sake, but today it was also for the busy street view.

I ordered almond steamed milk but the order was wrong and they gave me peppermint instead. I told the guy it was okay and that I'd try something new. I've only had vanilla and almond before, and peppermint wasn't better than those, but it made me want to try all the flavors (there's maybe thirty). Which I can probably do because I always get steamed milk. I thought about how Toscanini's has closed in Harvard Square and how I can never get Vietnamese coffee (coffee with condensed milk, lovingly sweet so you don't need extra sugar) from there again. Steamed milk, which is also warm and sweet, isn't better or worse, just different.

I opened my biochemistry text and began reading about glycolysis, which we started learning a couple weeks ago (um, I'm just a little behind). I've tried looking at it before but it all seemed like mindless mechanism and I didn't think there was any point in memorizing details I'll just forget. But our biochem conferences have been pretty interesting and I find myself with a funny desire to want to understand conceptually the breakdown of glucose and all the related processes. Today it fell into place more and I decided that glycolysis (and all the pathways we've learned since) is an acquired taste, and I believe in letting things grow on you (probably because I'm the type of person who needs to grow on people). There's certain satisfaction in being able to follow a system. I read in more detail about how glucose synthesis isn't the exact opposite of glucose breakdown because breakdown requires some irreversible reactions. You can't just go back; to make glucose you have get around those irreversibilities, make up some new reactions. And there are all sorts of ways your body tells you to make or break down sugar. It's pretty cool.

I took breaks to read Kafka on the Shore, which came in my mail today. Haruki Murakami is like an old friend, immediately comforting. His language pulls you in so swiftly, you don't even notice except that so suddenly you realize you're content. The main character in the book runs away to Takamatsu, on the island of Shikoku: "Shikoku, I decide. That's where I'll go. There's no particular reason it has to be Shikoku, only that studying the map I got the feeling that's where I should head. The more I look at the map--actually every time I study it--I got the feeling that's where I should head. It's far south of Tokyo, separated from the mainland by water, with a warm climate. I've never been there, have no friends or relatives there, so if somebody started looking for me--which I kind of doubt--Shikoku would be the last place they'd think of."

During my solitary trek south to get to Aud's island this past summer, I went to Takamatsu and it was one of my favorite parts of the trip, partly because I felt the most alone there than anywhere else. From my journal that day: "The train getting here was shaky and lacked signs. Getting off at a station, there was one person manning a run-down booth...The train only comes every half hour. It might be the typhoon but everything is empty and desolate, and the air is a bit ominous. I found groves and a small nursery on my hunt for bonsai. There's almost no one around, and the landscape here is so different. Very few buildings. Just sharply shingled rooftops, train tracks, narrow streets, and green and brown, plant and dirt."

While studying, an English teacher began holding office hours with her students at the table next to me. It was so representative of the kind of meetings I'd have back in college. I miss the kind of thoughts that writing essays forces you to consider and develop, but am also glad that I'm free to think without need to commit to a structure and thesis. I eavesdropped on two different students' ideas for their papers (the role of women in proposal scenes in The Importance of Earnest and how language interacts with social context of separate plays) before I decided I needed to move if I wanted to study anything.

I moved to a window-side cushy chair and while I got some work done, I found that my studying requires a hard surface and space to spread my things. It wasn't too long after that that I headed back to campus, darker out now, especially with daylight savings disappearing. Another day over that in retrospect, will be the filler between significant events, but that in the moment is all you have.

hunger

I'm always hungry. It's not always I'm-starving and it's not like I can't go without food during my cravings. Sometimes it's just a slight hollow that shifts to different areas of my stomach and mind, making me think I'd like something sweet one moment, salty the next, ooh maybe sweet and salty.

Today I told Albert that I think I'm leptin-deficient with a super metabolism (kidding, but this is a scientific possibility no?). Leptin is related to satiety; without it you feel hungry even after eating and this can lead to obesity. He said that in this case I should be grateful for my deficiency because without it my super metabolism would kill me. I hadn't considered that. My abnormalities, a lack of one thing and an excess of another, balance each other. The fetal heart comes to mind again, how sometimes when you have multiple defects, one abnormality keeps you alive in the presence of another. Science is an endless source of unoriginal analogies and I've been studying all day, somewhat to catch up and mostly to be alone.

Also today I told D that he's peculiar, not so much because his individual qualities are peculiar but because the combination of them is. All this got me thinking about qualities in general, how they communicate and interact within a person.

People always say that when you arrive to a new place, you can reinvent yourself, offer whatever representation of yourself that you'd like. But we also know that even if you attempt that, you inevitably fall back into yourself. I've been lucky to grow up appreciating what I can offer and also knowing full well the wide expanse for improvement, and being comfortable with both.

But with each new place, there is still that inner desire to transition from quiet to loud. I use these terms not to necessarily describe literal volume, but more as a way to classify people whose selves come across with ease (loud), versus people whose selves are below the surface (quiet). And this doesn't correlate to superficial versus deep. There are people who are deep that immediately come across that way, and I'd classify them as loud.

The process of knowing yourself and other people here has been interesting, because it's a dynamic I haven't encountered before. A hundred of us, with the same schedule and routine of work and play, half of us living and eating in the same space, the other half barely dispersed in a two-mile radius from the rest. There's only so much room for difference in what we do, and maybe because of that, there's also a lot of space to draw upon individual characters and qualities. You see yourself being unravelled and digested by other people in the same way that people have unravelled and digested you before. There are the few more invested encounters that have their unique nuances but where you place among the larger population often follows a similar pattern.

Here I'm one of many because I'm from California and went to Harvard. Here I'm distinct for being an English major and the only Vietnamese girl. Most everyone knows these superficial details, and while they're superficial, it's nice that we know them about each other. It's nice to have a baseline, so that certain things come across despite quietness. And though I feel the time may have passed to get past baseline with some because friends have formed and niches carved, there are many opportunities for those things beyond baseline to come across.

Even with the potential, there sometimes feels like something is missing, something I can't quite share because of my quietness. Because of the stillness that arises from fierce deficiencies and stormy excesses. Maybe it's not solely me. Maybe the quiet of connection is the result of not just my own quietness but of a serendipitous balance between the quirks of interaction. One means of communication working in high gear masks the inability of another to function, leaving a neutral line of understanding. Maybe the intricate compromise struck between abnormalities and oddities within a single person is also characteristic of interaction among people, lying in the space in between. The only way you can tell if this is true is if you feel that slight hollow that's fed and then needs to be fed again.

broken

My laptop fell against the wooden table in the dining hall and the wireless card cracked, so that the covering doesn't seal the metal beneath. I Scotch-taped it, and lodged a book underneath it to keep it semi-stable. My internet flickers in and out. I have to reconnect, both to wireless and to Yale's private network each time. Don lent me a wireless card until I get a new one, but I've yet to use it or to order a new one. I'm waiting for this one to completely die out. My cell phone got caught in the rain, and wouldn't turn on. When it finally did turn on, I couldn't dial or receive calls. When I can hear someone, there's a lot of static. It sometimes turns back off, and is stubborn about returning to me. I check on it every few hours, nurse it and hold out hope that I will not need to replace it.

I have a neurotic thing about using up all my toiletries, a habit that didn't develop or become evident until I came to college and had to move each year. I like to finish my soap, toothpaste, shampoo, laundry detergent down to their last sliver, pea-sized blob, drop and so on, before I go on to another place, and in the rare case that I time it incorrectly, I bring these things with me. I can't throw them away. I have old folders whose sides I've taped up repeatedly to use again. I'm also obsessive about recycling paper, and it has little to do with the environment, more about making use of things. I keep most things, and often not out of sentimental value but out of pure value. I still have my first pair of flip-flops, from high school. And it's not about being frugal. They probably cost four dollars and I definitely got my money's worth after the first year of constant wear. I still have them because I can still wear them and because I still like them. Their jean-blue is interrupted by lines of white as their fabric's worn, and I've scruffed the layers down near the sole. I keep most anything that still fits no matter how old, I re-use and re-use.

Yesterday I wanted to write about how amazing anatomy has been. Working on her foregut pre-lab in my room, Allison mentioned how "hardy" the body is. How so many things go wrong but we find ways to survive, imperfectly. You don't REALLY need a gallbladder because bile can go from your liver to the duodenum fine. Every place in your body has at least two sources of blood, just in case one goes astray. It might make the vessels in your abdomen protrude like the head of Medusa, but you'll be alive. And of course we learn about syndrome after syndrome. Marfan, Wilson's, Horner's. Have seen patients with kidney transplants, spleens five times the normal size, cancers of the kidney and blood and so much. And each person functions in their own way, a little broken in places in the body and sometimes, most painfully, in heart.

The frail woman with Wilson's sat so still, clenched her hands so tight, stared out at us without blinking and little fear. When the light of the projector flooded her face, she squinted slowly and covered her eyes matter-of-factly. For all that calm, it felt at times like she was hiding, and how much of it was her illness and how much of it was her, I couldn't tell. I came out of that lecture thinking that my body's built better but she's stronger. With her, the way the pieces fit differently was visible, and you feel that with every patient who tells you that this or that is wrong, and it made something else wrong, and they're trying to put themselves back together but things might be missing or awry but they just want to be kept together somehow. It's okay, things have to be moved around. Scotch-taped.

And so it's hard for me to let go. I understand the difference between a quality existence and a mere existence for existence sake, but I believe so strongly in giving something its fullest life, to finding what lies in between the broken pieces. And the thing is, I do believe in an inherent, inexplicable value in just existing, continuing.

Today we had class about patient autonomy, the right of a patient to refuse treatment, to be treated as he wishes. We watched part of a documentary about Dax Cowart, a man who was severely burned in a freak explosion. Words could never conjure the image of his pain in that aftermath; it looked and felt excruciating. He wanted badly to die. He felt his life would so decrease in quality, that it wouldn't be worth going through the pain of rehabilitation to get there. He was a versatile athlete, and those days would be long over. His shrunken figure, with skin so foreign you could barely register it except for when a limb moved beneath it, begged to relieve its burden. I don't think anyone watching his whole self asking to be gone wanted to say no.

We talked for awhile about Dax. Then we saw a clip of him years later. After rehabilitation and two suicide attempts, Dax became a married lawyer. He'd lost his sight, but could live independently and actively. He fights for patients' rights to autonomy. He says that he doesn't blame his mother for keeping him alive, but that he should've been the one to make the decision. He emphasizes quality. For example, he says, if he lost his hearing, he would see that as a lesser life and he wouldn't want that. I didn't buy that, though. If he'd lost his hearing first and still had his sight, he'd probably value his sight in the same way. But because he'd already lost it, he learned to live without it. And yes, who am I to judge whether he is living as fully as if he weren't like that? I do respect people's choices, and I know that how I see life is different from how each person sees life. And of course there are boundaries and limits to how much pain a person can bear, and it depends on what lies ahead, and quality does matter because life is the non-necessities, the more-than-breathing. How I feel about this isn't a straightforward statement about how I'd want to treat a patient or even Dax himself; I still have much to learn.

But what I think about most is this. He's still living; each day he chooses to live. Do the pieces fit differently? Yes. Do they hurt, jamming into each other and sliding past and reorganizing? Yes. But do they continue? Yes.

save october

For all the useful (2%) and useless (98%) thinking that I do, feeling inevitably comes first.

October doesn't feel like October. It's too warm, and the trees haven't changed color. Maybe in the next few years, what used to be October will weave its way through to November or December, the way that wine country is predicted to move north from California through Oregon to Washington. So maybe it's not lost; it will just be in a different place, and that's the kind of thinking that normally comforts me. Except this time I can't bring myself to idealize the change. Because just when October has become my favorite month, it's slipping away from me. And October in November is not the same as October in October. Even if another month stole its temperature, its sunny cold days and light brush of a breeze, the effective crunch of dry leaves and the soggy stickiness of the wet ones slicked to shoe bottoms, the warm fiery colors, the medium-long days, even the sweet nostalgia for passing heat and anticipation of cold, and if you're in Boston, the first snow of the year...even if some imposter could do all that, it can't take its place in time. October is situated in transition. It lives after the waning summer, in the throes of schooltime beginnings, nestles itself before the big holidays and end of year. So please don't pass into something else, because you are the comings and goings. You can't come and go.

Awash in moods like this, I fixate on a question someone recently asked me about whether I'm easily attached. I do form strong affection for little, stupid things quickly, like the bump on my ring and the dots on my face (not moles, not freckles?) and people's laughs and the way they sleep. And okay, while I could accept letting go of those things if I had to, I do like sustaining the bigger things, in mind if nothing else. I can still feel the linoleum of Donnolly Hall against my bare legs on skirt days, can place myself into the intimate coziness of Adams B-37, will still smile at how he'd take care to return the strap of my tank top back to my shoulder after moving it to kiss me there, can every so often let the chill of the Sunset fog pass over and through me.

I value intimacy, the things that make me want to wrap my arms around them. Like everyone else, I want connection. Why, then, am I so drawn to distance in my relationships? With A and me, distance was defining. Physically apart, lives on entirely polar paths, opposite sensibilities. My parents always wondered why I didn't date anyone from school, my friends never imagined me with someone so different from me. Proximity wasn't appealing. In recent encounters there's been emotional distance, which somehow lends itself to an emotional interaction. Distance takes effort, it's rewarding, it challenges you and can sometimes make you more true. But sometimes, more than anything it's too hard and it's so elusive that I wonder how it can have such a grasp on me.

I don't make any sense but this is how it is. I don't want October to move to November, and I want to keep distance close.

the heart

Me: I think I have a heart defect.
Friend: Why?
Me: I have to think about it. I just know it's an odd heart.

*

We've been learning about the heart. We've read about it from the point that two cells make one embryo, to how it functions in a baby, to how it morphs into an adult. We've seen our professor twist foam tubes to help us visualize (couldn't tell one end from another). We've watched animations on our computer on how the heart folds, closes, develops. We've detached the lungs from the heart in our donors, and held the heart in our hands--not fully, still clinging onto the body. We haven't seen the individual chambers yet, but we can peer at the vessels cut open on either side.

The heart, like everything when you really think about it, is complicated and simple. It is important and complex. It's a system, and of course another system could have worked, but it's this one that we have. It's an amazing one, but a million things can go wrong. In the end it's a fragile thing; it gets confused and malformed and tired out. It is so beautiful.

The fetal heart can't depend on lungs for oxygen. So it comes up with all these mechanisms to deal with it. It might make you wonder why the fetus doesn't just have functional lungs. But you don't instinctually think that. Instinctually you think that of course, it has to grow. Its starts one way and it learns and ends up in another way. It doesn't happen right away. I think it's funny, though, that the mechanisms the heart has to cope with not being fully developed yet, are just as complex as the development the heart is waiting for.

Sometimes the adult heart suffers because one of these fetal heart qualities persists, never goes away. In the fetal heart blood can travel between the right and left atria. In the adult heart, this portal closes. It should close.

In one of our case studies, a patient had a thrombus (clot) in his vein that traveled to his brain and caused a stroke. In a normal person, this clot would have traveled through his heart to his lungs and might not have caused much of a problem. But this patient still had the portal between his atria. So the clot has two paths: a normal one through one atrium to the lung and an abnormal one, through one atrium to the next atrium and to the body, to the brain. The clot in this patient took the latter path. An online animation showed the clot on its course, and I found myself mourning it aloud. Oh no. Oh, that's sad.

This is called a "paradoxical" clot, because it starts out in one system (pulmonary, that of the lungs), but it ends in another (systemic, that of the body). That's the price of staying undeveloped, of staying open, of leaving another path, one that's not right and not healthy. Your system hurts itself, makes a mistake, misjudges.

But you can't say it's unnatural, this so-called defect--it's natural, it's how you were made. And so what if you didn't make the decision to have it that way, to keep a remnant of your innocent, brand-new self? And so what if you still have the choice of two paths, when inevitably you are going to have to go down both and one will hurt?

I love the heart. It's so strong and vulnerable. It can adjust to some alterations, but it's particular. It needs certain things, and it needs them to give them away, all the while sustaining itself. I love the heart. But I don't think I will study it in isolation. Someone else should prevent strokes and the like, but me, I don't think I can look after odd hearts. I wouldn't want to fix them.

one part

I've been itching to write about old and new for the past month I've been here, but I honestly haven't had a period of time and space to do so. When I'm not in class or attending a meeting with a free meal or doing an anatomy pre-lab or in anatomy lab or eating pizza (New Haven = pizza town) or waiting for the ridiculous elevator in Harkness (my dorm), I'm having pure, concentrated fun with my classmates. I consistently push aside thought for experience. The entry I've been longing to write and thought I would write this weekend will remain a longing because I went to the beach and spent an evening playing board/word/kid games.

Last week I attended a reading by Christine Montross, a doctor-writer, who wrote a book based on her experiences in anatomy. A couple of weeks ago, our entire class heard Anne Fadiman speak, the author of a book about the role of cultural differences in caring for a Hmong baby with epilepsy. She said that she didn't choose to write the book; it chose her. The second she said that, I thought, nothing in my life has chosen me. I've chosen everything. And maybe that's why I haven't felt compelled to really write anything. Both Anne Fadiman and Christine Montross mentioned the importance of writing in the moment, as you feel, to gather your experiences, to journal. When I asked her how one goes about being chosen, Anne Fadiman interpreted my question as how do I go about being chosen and suggested that I draw upon everything that I'm seeing and doing now in medical school.

And there is an amazing amount to draw upon. But the thing is--there is an amazing amount. Even in one day there is so much. Most days I spend two full minutes in awe of it. That doesn't sound like much, but how often do you spend two full minutes not really thinking anything but just in stupefied wonder? Instead of incompletely fleshing it all out, I let these things stack and build and sometimes topple. They don't dissipate in my mind, but I'm becoming so awash, so inundated that I'm resorting to bits and pieces. Which is maybe more realistic, more representative.

This is ending up to be ironic because I wanted to write about how I think I might have overcommitted myself here. But there are several things I'm truly excited about, and the idea of potential is always so nice to share. I've also been out of touch with the few of you who read this, so here's an update of one part of my life: the extracurriculars.

Atrium Magazine...So a few of my lovely classmates and I are starting a literary magazine for the students in all the health schools at Yale. We've named it ATRIUM, which calls forth a structural, living, artistic throb with and without analysis. I'm incredibly excited to create something from scratch, to see the talents of all the people here, and there has been so much enthusiasm and support already. The community is so small that most anyone in my class can come up to me and ask me about it. There is warmth in a communal recognition of one of your passions.

Haven Free Clinic...I'll be working in the Social Services department, something on which Harvard and Project Health have gotten me forever hooked. It's here where things are most basic and most complicated--people's baseline needs and the labyrinth you go through to get them. So many students are involved in the clinic that we work only a few weekends a semester, which is something I've been disappointed in here (the lack of more regular, long-term activities), but it does give exposure and allows room for other pursuits. A great deal of it focuses on insurance, which will be incredibly useful, and the experience will cover a lot of ground that school won't look down to see.

Immigrant & Refugee Services...Because of that, I looked for some things outside of Yale I could do more regularly, and found a really great program focused on helping refugees adjust to life in New Haven, in all respects--English tutoring, cultural adjustment, community outings, social services. They come from all over; each family is given individual attention. Today I was told that a mom, dad and one year old girl would be moving to New Haven from Somalia on September 24. Anyway, I just have a small commitment. I'll be taking people to doctor's appointments, helping them navigate the bus system to get back and forth and help make sure communication with the doctors are okay. Working with refugees is something I'd really like to do in the future, and this seems like a great way to get to know this town, its people and its transportation and neighborhoods and feel.

Educational Care Clinic...So this program is so much like ASK that I couldn't really pass up on it. The differences are that it's much less regulated (no doctor working with us, no actual clinic, less protocol and expertise overall), but a bit more narrow and personal (we have one student that we tutor regularly). We advocate for educational resources similar to the way we did in ASK, but more on our own (depending on how this goes, it would be nice to offer some of the things we did in ASK to this program). The appealing part is that we get to tutor at the same time, giving it a more wholistic character and real attachment. It's also a very new and rough program. Project HEALTH spoiled me with its ability to look at broad social structures and work personally with people too. I miss it.

Columbus House...This is another few-times-a-semester commitment that a whole bunch of the med students do because of the patient time. It basically involves taking histories from people getting free healthcare at a local homeless shelter. At school they devote a whole year to teaching us how to take a good history, how to elicit a patient's story. It's one of those things that make me feel that this fits.

But I also think I might not pursue this until next semester. I wanted to write about these things because each one makes me look forward and excited. It wasn't to show how much we do here, because most of the things don't require huge investments. I'm also not particularly ambitious, because a huge number of our class is involved in these things (class dynamic is a topic that will not go unwritten). Still, I'm overwhelmed, because somehow I've forgotten that I'm also in school and I need to learn things. And not just school, but school that is life not just in physical place and mental hours but in the way it grips you inside-out because it's what you feel and think and work for, hope for. More on that, little by little.

my "new haven"

It's square with white linoleum squared tiles. It has a near-full-wall window looking into the courtyard, across the door, into which sunlight seeps and pours. From afar you can see brick across the way, from up close you can see grass below. There is a ledge wide enough to sit, so you can lie by the window. The sink has a polished mirror that reflects the window if you are looking at it from my desk, like I just did. There are built-in shelves around the mirror, which are my favorite part of the room because it's homey, and not necessary. The desk is very wide, and the furniture is a deep rosey wood. My boxes have arrived from across the country. There are familiar things, but they're being put in new places.

It feels new, and that doesn't just happen by nature of actually being new. So for the first time this past week, I am genuinely happy.

pre-Asia

I've been waking up early, not of my own accord, the past few days and I feel anxious about leaving for Asia very soon, in a matter of hours. I'm really sleepy, but thought wins the battle over fatigue. I wanted to think about the past year before I travel, because I think post-travel SF will be different from pre-travel SF. It's been good to me. I waver between talking about it generally because I'm a little weary from ending things, and talking about it with some more shape because I might see it differently now than in five weeks when I return.

As amazing as I know it will be, going to Asia and heading into this personal and physical transition makes me aware of finishing the year here. The more transitions I experience, the more I realize how much they stand on their own, even as they flow into before and after.

I will miss so much about my life here. I worked up until the day I'm leaving, and I'm sad to leave a place where I learned a different kind of responsibility and day to day routine. I became competent at my job, and I had a good though stressful time finishing things up and training the summer person. I'll miss the organic thought, as well as the concrete procedures.

San Francisco is half my true love, my counterpart to New England. Because of the drives between SF and Fremont, as driver and passenger, I've grown less weary of bridges. During one moment when you're on the upward slope it becomes all water to your sides, and your rearview mirror reflects the ocean behind, so you're surrounded. Then the city peaks up in front of you, more and more until your car is level again.

I love my street and my neighborhood and my apartment. A blue preschool with handprints in the window marks the corner of my block where I turn right onto 10th Avenue. The houses stick together, distinct through their odd colors, differing balcony and window designs, and random shapes on their exterior (in my case, trapezoids). I have Mount Sutro from my brothers' windows and the peaks of Golden Gate and sunset from the right window in my living room. I have a long hallway, a closet with folding shutters, and wallpaper in my kitchen and bathroom. Ocean Beach is a long straight walk in one direction, and Baker Beach holds the Golden Gate in its sand like a sturdy lightweight Lego structure.

I've soaked in days of roaming, of polaroid pictures, of steps and hills, of food food food and delicious company. The fullness of days full of nothing really. Something about the mixture of sun and fog is conducive to this haze, but the crispness keeps you cold and aware of your skin. Houses sit next to restaurants; Irving Street is multipurpose for errands and food and shopping and quirks and people; a million distinct neighborhoods are compressed in this seven by seven mile place but feel expansive.

The sleep deprivation makes it hard to know what I want to say at this moment. I want to hang on to something because I know this trip will be wonderful and challenging and it will give me new feelings and I want to remember the feelings of now.

So, what do I feel now?
-Love for this small big city, in the way that you love things you feel you are and want to be.
-A scared excitement for what comes after Asia: newness. A new thing, new people, new school, new city. Yes, an old coast and old structure, but the new dominates.
-Gratitude for all the things the people in my life give me, for the ones who are still there. How each one offers something valuable that makes it natural to give back.
-Some pride in a year's work and some disappointment for lack of time to tie loose ends. Glad for the real and more vague things I learned about work, scientific thought, patients, disease, jobs well done, after-work dinners and nights.
-A fierce determination to meet the challenges of this trip which include, among many things: not fighting too much with my brother and renewing aspects of our past closeness while understanding our newfound differences; travelling alone and exploring well and growing from the solitude; winging substantial parts of the journey; completing rough parts like climbing Mt. Fuji or our two-day boat trip to Laos; surviving the backpacking; relishing the rainy season. And most of all, to take this time to do this at once: look at what's come before and what's to come, and to be away from all of that.

So I'm off, but I'll come back.

my one thing

I remember Aud talking once about how everyone is really good at one thing and she didn't know what her one thing was, and her roommate told her that she was good at people. That's a good thing to be good at. I, on the other hand, am not good at people. I'm not the greatest conversationalist and as of now I'm only good at connecting to a certain slice of people. I can talk to people relatively well at first meeting, depending on who it is, but for some reason these don't often turn into longer connections unless the person is the type to connect well with a lot of people in which case the success is much more on their end.

Everyone has this dilemma, I think, of pinpointing one thing; except it's harder for some than others. I am passionate about words, but I'm not spectacular at making them. Like, I could never do it for people who don't already know me in some form. Not good at poetry or fiction, because I think straight reality's hard enough for me to digest. On the other hand, I liked journalism but I couldn't commit to reality to that extent. I can write a decent English essay, but I would never survive in grad school and I'm not good at articulating my arguments aloud. I relish in the detail of words but much of it goes unnoticed by me unless I'm pushed to examine it. So there it is, I can't be a writer or a critic or scholar. I don't mean that I won't seek ways to write and read in the future, only that it's not "my thing."

I love music, but I'm mediocre at making it and I don't have the ear for technique or the nuances. No amount of practice would have made me great at the piano, because I dislike counting beats and even if I did get good at playing, I would never be able to distinguish keys or catch a melody well enough to play it without sheet music. I barely understand acoustics which is why I never know how to describe a band to someone who hasn't heard them.

A lot of the things I was passionate about in college--Project Health/SPI, thesis, my editing job, ASK--I never threw myself fully into. I still feel guilty about how much more I could have done for ASK, how few families really got anything from me because I always had something to study for. I hate that what was supposed to be the culmination of my English studies in college was nowhere near my best writing because I had to take the MCAT (which I didn't even do well on). I regret never getting into the specifics of the Summer Policy Institute--not learning more about the speakers and what they did, how I could incorporate their ideas in future work--because I was so entrenched in summer physics. I'm not always even that good at balance, because the sacrifices I make to have two things can make neither one really worth it.

There are other things, some of which don't seem like anything but that I find indicative. I like some of the photographs I've taken, but that's a result of taking so many that a few inevitably come out okay, and being in beautiful environments rather than anything I give to them. I'm not Victo, who has art as her thing. I'm pretty neat and organized, but I also spent five hours locating my Coachella tickets the night before leaving for it and I am no Melkis who knows how to use office supplies like no other and has a togetherness as her thing. I do my job well and I work hard, but I'm not meticulous and quick-thinking enough to be really excellent at it. Though since I've been training a new person, it's been easier for me to see how much I've learned this year, but still, it's not my thing.

I know it doesn't really matter if you have one "thing" or what it is, but it matters to yourself a little bit. So I was thinking about how I value stories, and how that underlies everything that I love. I'm not good at making them or telling them, but I can be good at finding and listening to them. Sorry, this is the only thing I could think of. If you want to tell me something, I'll listen and I'll remember, likely a good deal of it including how and where you said it. I'll try to understand the thread of your story and it will most always interest me. This is not to say that I'll be very good at figuring stories out. For all the ones I read and watch, I'm sometimes still surprised by conventional plot twists and while I can often figure out which character is going to live or die in a plot, there's a whole lot that's still new to me each time. But I'll read your essays and listen to you talk about those things we all randomly think about during the day but rarely speak aloud. I won't be the best at science or be a remarkable med student or make any great discoveries or really create social justice, but I'll collect the stories. I know it's not that great of a thing if I don't do anything with them, but I'm still working at it.

comfortable

How did it happen that I have two weeks left to wrap up a year's worth of work, to soak up my beloved apartment, to pack for travel and to prepare for school so that I'm not swamped when I get back in August? No matter how I try, I can't finish all the little things I thought I could do with my "free time." I've put a whole lot of photos in albums, but then I accumulated new ones this year. I've read a few books that make me want to get more. I've amassed much new music that I'd like to put in exactly the right playlists, but the minutes elude me. My email drafts folder grows by the day. I haven't written in my paper journal in ages; this past year, when I did write in it, it was when I was moody, not so much a thoughtful mood, just a moody mood. It's full of the same stuff. I regret that, because this year was so full of new, nuance.

This past Saturday I went to a graduation party for a girl who just graduated from my high school. We played together as kids, but I haven't spoken to her in years. She was salutatorian and is going to UCLA, and wants to major in environmental science. How odd to think of that time, so long ago. Notre Dame is very much the same and different too. We talked about teachers who were still around, Spirit Week, college applications. I sometimes missed high school while I was in college, but I haven't missed it in a long time (especially now that I miss college). As I told her how much she had to look forward to in college, I remembered how nice that summer before college was--so much possibility, so much excitement, so little anxiety, because my scope of the future back then ended with college. I didn't think past that, and it was great. At the same time that I grew nostalgic for that phase, I realized that I didn't want to be back there. I'm incredibly happy to be where I am right now, and I've liked--am grateful for--growing up a little. I love how much fuller life has gotten through experience and story. Like kids going into college, us kids going out have so many choices and opportunities ahead. We're in a scarier place than we were back then and somehow that's becoming less something to lament and more something we've gained privilege to.

The carefreeness of my weekends this past year in a very small way recalls a little of that stress-free summer before college (I doubt anything will ever be as completely thought-free and that's okay), but I've appreciated it differently. This past weekend was a lotta Steph & San Francisco. I saw her classmates perform classical music at the Alumni House and it was a nice excuse to dress up. Her friends are a warm, talented group of people. We went on another inNout & Krispy Kreme run afterwards, and spent quite a bit of time watching the donuts being made on the conveyer belt. I think I felt actual pain when they threw away a deformed donut that we'd been watching from its inception through its development. Such sugar coated goodness, never to be eaten! On Sunday I met up with Steph and Albert (silly kids!) again to go to the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair, which was quite the packed event. We were basically a herd marching slowly down the few blocks of Haight, and it was lively as outdoor affairs usually are. People peered at us from their balconies on the apartments lining the street, and we ate overpriced mediocre Chinese food while sitting on steps. There were bands at both ends of the fair, and various troupes moving from one end to the other. Everything was funky and hippie and colorful. It was a sunny cold day but warm within the cocoon of crowd.

Walking back, we somehow decided that we should build a fire in my fireplace and make s'mores. So we stopped at Steph's apartment so she could change and Albert could rest on her futon, then to Albert's apartment so he could get books and let me borrow his awesome backpack for my Asia trip, then finally to mine. We hesitated for a bit, unsure if the chimney was "open." When we finally went for it our fire went out pretty quickly, but we persevered and soon it was glowing. Christmas in June! The sunlight pours through the windows through the white curtains in my living room, so the room was awash in yellow sun and orange fire and the three of us were mesmerized. Then we skewered our marshmallows on fondue sticks and melted them atop le petit ecoliers. There was also dark chocolate with almonds. All the while my "comfortable" playlist provided a musical backdrop. I packed a little, they read a little; mostly we lolled and lazed around. An old friend, a new one; a city from my past where I've made my home of the present.

These things make me want to write because I want to both bottle it up and keep it in me, and to pass it around and make it tangible and living around me. There's much more I've wanted to write and more I will want to, and more photo albums I'll want to make, and more little things to do and make, but nothing can really capture everything. So you might as well carry it around with you.

hate/love

In one day as I was flying to Cleveland I rediscovered intense hate for one thing and intense love for another. They're not related.

I freaking hate flying and almost everything associated with it. I fly a lot, and I HATE airports. I've had practically every bad experience possible and those I haven't had, I'm sure I will. I've been in two-hour security lines (pre-9/11) that make you miss your flight so that you're stuck in the airport for six hours. I've been sent back home from the airport. I've lost luggage, I've sat in a plane waiting an hour for a storm to pass so that we could move up a hundred feet to the gate (thus missing a connecting flight), I've been given a boarding pass to Austin instead of Boston (and once I cleared that up I had to retrieve my luggage that was also routed to Austin), I've spent 15 hours at the airport/on planes for a 5 hour flight, I've switched planes due to malfunctions. Like everyone else, I've had the crying babies and obnoxious kids and vocally grumpy passengers and seat-kickers and lean-backers-even-while-you're-eating. I hate the recycled air and the loud, fast flush in the bathrooms and the prevalence of incompetence. I feel like such a horrible person when I am easily annoyed at someone for being incompetent, but I can't stand it. I've lost expensive things on airplanes, like my retainer and iPod. And though this is of course my fault, it contributes to my bitterness.

One of the things I hate most is how airports desensitize people. The staff rarely cares about the passengers, because to them everyone is just another cranky customer with the same problems as everyone else. They can no longer see why some hours at an airport versus some hours with someone you haven't seen and won't see for a long time is a reason for some pain. Over time the urge to place blame on them for your woes snuffs their natural empathy. I do know there's nothing they can do, but I do think that if the woman behind the counter was actually sympathetic when she tells me my flight that I paid for months in advance is overbooked and I'm not getting on this plane even as I can see it outside the window, I wouldn't feel so defeated. Instead, I'm just another, and to the woman behind the counter, why risk sympathy when you'll likely just get anger in return? I've tried combatting this with politeness and the kind of empathy I'd like, because I think people do respond, but honestly I'm just not always that patient and it's hard to be nice first if someone else isn't all that nice to you.

My hatred of airports/planes is so pure that it overcomes my natural urge to romanticize such imperfections with their counterparts, like the beautiful views and how you're covering all kinds of distance without feeling any motion and how you have long stretches of time for music and books and the conversations you have with strangers and how I actually liked the food back when they gave it to you and that one time I acidentally went to the international terminal to pick someone up and saw people standing around with signs and flowers and so visibly eager to see loved ones from afar. I like these latter things about flying, but for me they are distinct from the experience of flying. I like them as individual things, and I hate flying as a whole. It's the difference between a good thing with imperfections, which is how I see most things, and a bad thing with some saving graces.

Enough about that.

I didn't bring enough to read during my delays last weekend, but I had a pocketbook Chagall and I was too tired to read much anyway so I just looked at his pictures. I freaking love Chagall. I don't know much about art, so it's not like I have a whole lot to choose from when I say he's my favorite, but for what it's worth, he is. I love how he captures such real emotion with such dreamlike images, and how his vibrant colors make you think that's what life really looks like. I like how people are often upside-down or at odd angles and how he gives them unnatural curves that seem natural. One of the things I love best is how he makes people fit together--how they float, intertwine, connect in some way. One of my favorites is The Birthday, where a woman is leaning forward on one foot, like she's drifting upwards, and a man is floating above her, kissing her. They're back to back, so he has to stretch his head 180 degrees (impossible) so that he can be face to face with her. I also love his windows and the views into other worlds, how these views also happen when there are no windows. I like his art because you could think hard about it if you want to and there are deeper things that I probably don't get, but you don't have to think too hard. It's strange and beautiful and you can just look at it to get that. You can see that it's not exactly simple because it's different and odd and there must be some reason and technique for how he gets you to feel this way--it's not just a pretty scene but something he does to it--but still, it is simple.

my supervisor and my job

I love my supervisor. She's amazingly smart but seems unaware of it. She doesn't use her job or her life as a way of proving how smart she is; she just is. She doesn't really care that she didn't pursue the education and career that her abilities would be associated with; she's happy. She's laid-back and outspoken; she swears freely. As scrupulous as she is with science, she lacks the neurotic and uptight tendencies that usually go along with that. She has reddish blondish brown curls that are typically tied up in a bundle and the fray curls wisp in every direction, and that along with her blue eyes and long face make her a frenetic unconventional beauty. She has an amazing work ethic, not in the sense that she works without breaks or comes in every weekend (she's very good at work/personal boundaries and making her own life hers) but she does everything with the care and accuracy that's required when you're doing something for the first time. Except she does it over and over, all the time, this way.

Her mother was diagnosed with leukemia awhile ago and passed away just a couple weeks after they found out. Being the only sibling in the area and also the only one with in depth knowledge of leukemia, my supervisor had to juggle taking care of her parents, talking to the doctors, researching new treatments, informing everyone in the family of what was going on, and making sure her own child was coping okay. I've been surprised to find out about my supervisor's family's hematological problems considering that's her field, and these problems arose after she'd chosen it. Her son has hemophilia, and then her mom gets leukemia. She was unsurprisingly devoted, practical and capable throughout it all, but not without feeling and sadness. That fragile/strong dichotomy gets me all the time.

We've been tracking the progress of leukemia patients pre and post-bone marrow transplant (which was not an option for my supervisor's mom who was too elderly and sick to survive an operation like that). My supervisor is very invested in these patients, even though she's not a physician and she's not directly taking care of them and in most cases she hasn't met them. She gets genuinely disappointed to see someone relapsing and sincerely wishes to see progress. She so easily makes the connection between paper results and real people. There is a particular woman who she's really pulling for, because she's been through so many different treatments. During the first difficult week when my supervisor's mom had been diagnosed and they knew she'd only have a little time left, my supervisor was tracking this woman's cancer. She always updates me, even though I'm not the one doing that part of the project. She told me the woman was negative for disease, and she looked so happy to be telling me. It wasn't an overt display of joy; it was there in the creases and corners.

I thought how rare it is to be so happy for another person's fortune when your own is dreary. I can't say that I'm always like that; I have jealous tendencies. But it made me very thankful that our work, as steeped in concepts and theories and the grind of experiments as it is, is based on real people.

I like my job. A huge part of that is my supervisor. Other parts of it have to do with jobs in general. I've learned so differently this year. School is linear and structured and designed to educate. I've got a handle on how to follow that; I'm good at routine and learning from books with clearcut purposes and narratives. Tossed into real life, you see that you learn things in scattered pieces, often without a story, and you have to put the effort into seeing how it works or realizing that it doesn't. This applies to the big picture as well as just figuring what the hell you're doing on a daily basis. Also, mistakes. Many of them. And it's hard to think of your job the way you would a curved organic chem test, where 60% correct is not that bad. But it's also what makes it satisfying.

There are frustrating times and wasted hours, but the good, productive moments compensate for the others. I'm not contributing anything that will be very important in anyone's life, not broadly or on an individual interaction basis the way teaching or other relationships are. But I can see different avenues of doing so in the future, and that view helps an enormous amount. I like the intellectual challenge of figuring things out, and explaining what goes on in your body. It's scary not to know, and in trying to just know, I think there's an element of what happens when you teach someone something and they get it and they feel better for it. Also, I don't think scientific inquiries are so different from other kinds. It strives for a more concrete, objective understanding, but at the end of the day, who really knows why it works like that, why things are made to function a certain way? Sure, it works because this causes that and it works well this way and you can see the beauty of a well-ochestrated pathway, but there are always other equally good ways. Why it's this way is a question of all disciplines.

What bothers me about a lot of work in general is that I can easily imagine someone else doing it in my place; I don't find that I bring anything uniquely valuable or that I'm doing it any better than someone else could. I think I did all my past jobs well enough but there was no real reason that it was me doing it; the same goes for my job now. Right now, I feel it's okay for the balance to be tipped in my favor--that because I'm still learning it's okay that I'm getting more out of this experience than I can give it. Because it contributes to a feeling that I've never had, one I'm still developing and don't quite have yet--the feeling that there does exist a path that I am specifically suited to. There is something that I'm not just adequate for, but that I'm meant and exactly fitted for. All the things along the way change your shape or make you see a nook you hadn't noticed so that you end up fitting something only you can fit into.

journals of steph and strangers

Reading Steph's med school blog (in retrospect) has been like discovering another person. Hi Steph! I've been reading snippets here and there, and while the things in each entry represent things I already know of her, there's always something new. Not new in that I didn't already know she hates the fog and hills and loves her classmates and oncology. New in that I hadn't heard it expressed in these specific words, on that particular day. She mentioned in an early entry about how she's not drawn to strangers' blogs, but maybe that's changed a bit because we've been talking recently about how we read strangers' blogs. I love reading blogs, people I know and strangers likewise. I love seeing what people choose to say, because there is a great deal of choice and weeding out. I love the dynamic of connection and separation that happens between bloggers and readers. I love seeing my own feelings articulated by someone else; that is so much of what I love about fiction and here it is in real people's lives.

I like strangers' blogs because the process of getting to know someone has so much novelty and a refreshing quality, and it does weird things to me. I once spent a few days reading a person's entire archives, not because it was particularly interesting but because a lot of the way he talked and things he referenced reminded me of West Point and I just wanted to figure out whether he actually went there (he rarely used any actual names). I eventually discovered that he went to the Naval Academy (close, right?). I had momentarily become obsessed with seeing if I could figure out a basic fact of his life through his more intangible online thoughts, and isn't that such a reverse way to get to know someone? It's like characters, except not. And it's always a treat to find the thoughtful, well-written, funny, bittersweet ones. And to read about people leading lives completely different from yours. I also develop dislike for people through their blogs, which I continue to read. It would suffice it to say that if I have a reaction to your writing, good or bad, I'll keep reading it. People can say so much in narcissistic writing that just can't be said in a two way conversation.

Anyway. Steph, I love your poems and your growing love of San Francisco and your thoughts on medicine and how even your thoughts on the misery of college make me miss it.

I've wanted to switch to blogspot for a long time because of the ease of posting photographs and also because it seems more conducive to regular entries. But I've been reluctant to abandon the history of my livejournal because 1) the history and 2) I don't know if I should really write more regularly. I'd like to, I'd like to write about my reaction to a movie soon after watching it instead of piling it into a larger entry about how lost I am or some recurring theme. In some ways I'm scared it'd replace a personal journal, but honestly I've been too tired to write in my own journal this past year. And there's too much piecing together of real life to try to piece together a livejournal entry, sometimes. Maybe it'd be nice to put the fragments out there, instead of collecting and sorting.

coachella

A delayed flight to LA, a two-hour drive to Indio, the wait for our keys to the condo, a trip to the grocery store, the 90 minute drive or more into Coachella (I think it normally takes 30 minutes but we missed a turn and sometimes there was traffic into the parking lot), the 20 minute walk from the car to the entrance (that was the damn longest part). The heat made the walk pretty miserable, and the first thing I wanted to do upon entering was get water and go to the bathroom. I needed another water bottle after the first show. The porter potties are stifling (though cleaner than I expected) and during the first half hour I honestly wondered whether I'd make it through the first day, much less all three days. But that first hour of the hot dry blindingly bright late afternoon was always the hardest each day, and once you get past it and know you'll be fine, it is glorious.

There are five stages: the huge Coachella Stage with screens and a long expanse of grass in front of it; next to it is the smaller but still large Outdoor Stage that has some bleachers way in the back; perpendicular to these are three tented stages in a row, aptly named the Sahara, Gobi and Mojave. There were SO MANY people. Families with little kids, groups of friends, college kids, couples, teenyboppers, hipsters, hippies...music lovers. Music has that ineffable quality of being intensified and better by sharing, more so than a lot of other beautiful things, because it can be so accessible to so many at once. I remember hearing a song I liked playing across the Yard from someone's dorm room, through their open window to mine, and thinking of connections between strangers. And it's amazing to be able to go from dancing to a semi-raunchy girl band packed in the middle of a crowd, to standing hushed in the front row listening to just a voice and acoustic guitar. And to see how everything contributes to making each show distinct: the time of day and the light and temperature that goes along with that, where you are in the crowd, whether you stand or sit, and so on.

There were so many highlights: the energy and passion of Arcade Fire and how much we moved to their music, Lily Allen's band playing their trumpets in sync, Damien's riffs, Air's atmosphere reaching us in the bleachers, Regina Spektor's distinctive piano and voice and pale skin with red lips, being so close to Jose's lovely quiet music, the Decemberists playing the entire eight minutes of the Mariner's Revenge Song. And all the dancing, to CSS and Rapture and anything with a beat really. I didn't expect to dance that much. I think we ended up seeing twenty artists, maybe fifteen of whom were full sets, which is pretty awesome.

The one singular highlight though was Bjork, headlining on Friday night. I didn't listen to much of her music before that, aside from Vespertine and Dancer in the Dark, which I love, but I wasn't a huge fan of her or anything. But I fell in love. Her voice is so beautiful, I have no words. It soars and it moves in a way that makes you feel each note. We were far back so I couldn't see her well but I could see her petite self move across the stage, and I was amazed at the sound that came out of her, she looked like a fairy or pixie but was so much more powerful than that. And she's so incredibly creative, all these strange sounds come together and you're surprised to find yourself immersed in them and loving them. Argh, I'm having that really frustrating moment of not doing something justice at all. Let's just say that if I had to choose fifty things that defined beauty for me, her music live would be one (fifty sounds like a lot, but it's not if you think about all the things you could name).

By the end of the each day, your lower back aches, there's dirt underneath your fingernails and dust in between your toes and blisters on the soles, your skin is a funky mixture of sweat and grass, your contacts feel like they have a little layer of fuzz atop them, and if you're me, your hair was messy to begin with. You feel like there's all this crap on you that you can't wait to shower off, but you're so happy because you've been filled up through your ears and feet and eyes with all this beautiful stuff.

books

I finished “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen the other night; it almost made me cry which puts it in the emotional vicinity of Atonement, Lolita and King Lear. Except that I can’t compare, in the way that every book is so uniquely itself. The contemporary humor and bluntness and surface pessimism of “The Corrections” are unlike what moves me about the other books. Some feelings it evoked were similar to past ones I’ve had, but this isn’t to say that my response was the same at all. My favorite books have a lot in common; they make me a little (or very) sad, contain clear moments of happiness to cling to, articulate feelings or thoughts I’ve had that I haven’t described, or haven’t described well, or haven’t recognized. I usually finish them quickly. These qualities being general, the books that embody them are pretty different and I have a different relationship with each of them. I thought maybe I should start writing more about them (and writing more in general), to avoid the consuming inwardness that having a “relationship” with your books fosters, to think more about what I want to do with what the books give.

I went into the book without really knowing too much about it, though it’s well-known. The title made me think of journalism and for whatever reason that stopped me from starting it for awhile. “Corrections” turns out to be about many kinds of corrections; there are physical, concrete ones but also of course the personal, emotional ones. It’s a dysfunctional family story about parents and children and siblings and significant others trying to prevent, deny, and compensate for each other’s mistakes and flaws. It’s long and about a lot of things, but really it’s about this one thing—how screwed up we become by trying so hard not to screw up, by trying to correct ourselves into better versions of the flawed people around us.

I liked:

“When the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before?”...In typing this quote, I find that it reminds me a little of how I might think/write about something like that. Things for me are all about how I internalize them. While concrete events or singular experiences have an immediate impact on me, it’s the way they linger, build up, flow back in mind and heart over time that really changes me. We’ll see how that pans out in the future, because I’m sure I’ve only seen a tiny bit of what can change you through a life.

“He'd lost track of what he wanted, and since who a person was what a person wanted, you could say that he'd lost track of himself.”...Maybe the character believes in this line, but I don’t think the writer does. I believe in intentions, even as I feel they only go so far and am often disappointed in lack of actions (largely in myself and a small number of others from whom I expect a lot). I think what you want is a huge part of who you are, even if it’s not something you can be or do. Honestly, it’s what I fall back on when I need encouragement. I remember Mr. Floyd, our high school history teacher, asking us what categories he should grade our projects by—and I suggested effort. I remember Anna B. scoffing at this notion, and then Mr. Floyd said, effort would show in the quality of the work, so it doesn’t need quantification. Personally I think the correlation between effort and quality differs among people, and god, it’s hard to always be your best, so whatever, I’m making effort its own category.

So it’s easy to see how everyone’s felt a lost sense of self because they don’t know what they want. But maybe the things that lead you to uncertainty are just as much who you are, and maybe they’re the same things that lead you back. The book made me feel anew these cliches, of a self that stays in tact in the midst of lives falling apart and so much mess.

It scared me a little, as each day I both recognize and avoid more the reality that life will be imperfect—and not just imperfect in the romanticized way I look at flaws, mistakes, mishaps, difficult love, second choices…but imperfect in that gut-wrenchingly painful, that-was-not-for-the-best, damn-this-is-hard way. Yet, it’s easier to look back on pain in retrospect and see what each one meant and how important it was, when so much passing of time and life happens in a book...instead of trudging through it in real life. I think we develop a lot of expectations of how we’re going to feel during certain phases of our lives and through certain events, through stories—books and movies. I worry about being overprepared, because I expect certain emotions and events that I see in these fictional lives and maybe this will keep me from experiencing things I hadn’t foreseen. I worry about being underprepared, because I might think that life can be as neat of a mess as fiction is, and life will prove me wrong and it will hurt. I’m getting so confused writing this, but I also realize now I don’t have to worry about these things.

I wonder how people foresaw their futures before there was such widespread, accessible stories of fictional people, created by real people. Maybe people just absorbed things as they came, without knowing too much beforehand, without too many expectations based on what’s supposed to happen in a life. I like this idea, and believe that it still applies to us, as awash in other people’s stories as we are. Things are new and yours when they happen to you; your story is going to be the one you feel most, and most genuinely, and there will be surprises still, and you’ll be hurt and you’ll be fine.

And okay, since I mentioned it and because I came across a We-Hate-Atonement facebook group today that made me hostile and impulsive—I need to passively-aggressively defend this book. Not against people who have judged the book in its entirety and still don’t like it, but against the people who haven’t given it enough consideration to justify what they say. Not that I know the book, or any book, in its entirety but I do think there are things Atonement-critics overlook. Maybe I’m not as irritated by Briony, the protagonist, because I see a lot of myself in her, but I do see why she would annoy people. What I don’t get is how people focus on the fact that she’s to blame for everything. Yes, the book is about her crime and guilt, but it’s also clear that it’s really about atonement—which is different from forgiveness, which she isn’t asking for, or repentance, which she already obviously feels.

What’s more—people who bash the ending: the twist is not everything, and it’s more complicated than you give it credit. If you consider the implications of her self-representation, the notion of her fiction, then you see that the Briony you dislike is one that she’s created for you, and for herself. It takes a lot of courage to be honest about yourself, more so to (possibly) distort things to make your own flaws all the more apparent. Besides that, the ending isn’t clearcut. Maybe the twist is fictional, too, maybe it’s more self-inflicted punishment. Who really knows? But you just can’t hate on the novel’s premise without first considering how the ending changes not just the final parts but the entire book, without thinking of how it opens up endless perspectives on her character and the plot and atonement. If you give it at least that, you can then hate all you want. I’m mostly accepting of differences of opinion, though I have a lot of natural defensiveness that I’m trying to decrease; I just hold things I love very, irrationally close.

huh

I was reading old entries and almost two years ago I alluded to that King Lear line about "Reason not the need" when I was writing about Walden Pond. That didn't even register when I wrote about it again, awhile ago (and coming to a similar conclusion both times). In fact, realizing that I wrote about it two years ago made me remember that it was Professor Greenblatt, not Parker, who lectured on it and who I was referring to in the more recent entry...but I'd mixed them up since I took Shakespeare with both, and I mistakenly wrote that Professor Parker had talked about that line. My memory being something I value, this was a little disconcerting even as I know it's normal to mix up details even for those with the best memories.

I almost went back and corrected my entry, from Parker to Greenblatt, but I didn't.

I'm glad I wrote the few times that I did over the past years, because these entries feels both close and distant. Sometimes I write a phrase and feel like I must've written the same thing at another time. Then there are things I don't remember at all. Not that I don't remember the events, but the same feelings aren't so close at hand. Not that the feelings in which I was so endrenched are surprising when I re-read them, but some of them feel new rather than lived-in, while others are precursors of current thoughts and thus feel near, but not quite. It's very bittersweet.

highlights

I usually write about happy things when they're making me happy, but I think I can learn from my friends who practice focusing on blessings when they're down. I've been really happy lately and I should draw upon that to get past this momentary slump.

books movies music
There are some good bookstores on Irving/Judah. I miss Harvard libraries, even though I rarely checked anything out for pleasure since I always had plenty of good/bad reading for class. "The Namesake" started me out on a steady streak because it was so good. Stephen and I read it around the same time and he thought it was just like any other immigrant story and maybe in narrative terms it was, but the writing was so nuanced and beautiful. I remember picking up "Interpreter of Maladies" at the bookstore and reading the first story in one go because the language was so compelling, and that surprised me a little because contemporary fiction doesn't do that often for me. I think raising students on the classics makes them (or just me) think that a certain foreign-ness of language adds to beauty and depth, but lately I find the same in current language and I'm glad I've recognized that finally. Maybe it's a combination of the language and detail, and this phase in my life, but I connected to Namesake more than with any other immigrant story I've read (most of which have been more closely tied to my own background). It actually pushed me to talk to my parents about their stories, and made my recent desire to see Vietnam, in a personal way and not as just another place, more substantial.

"The Things They Carried," (a series of bitingly personal stories of Americans in the Vietnam War) which Andrew sent to me back in January, was my next choice. That sequence made me think of Aud's idea of things being interconnected, and I wonder if I consciously chose "Things" because "Namesake" made me think about Vietnam and my family's past and where I fit in or whether it just happened that way, fittingly without my notice. A bit of both, probably. In any case, the core of "Things" is about stories, and it went by fast and made me think that masterpieces are rare and require some ineffable talent but a touching book can just be about experience and sensitivity, and that that's all I aspire to achieve in life. Again making my own patterns out of the unrelated, my next read, "The World According to Garp" was also full of stories and about the process of making up stories. How I feel about all that, stories, is for another time.

Movies are for those times when I want to be overdosed--isn't it weird how people and worlds can be packed into two hours? Watching "Fallen Angels" and "Days of Being Wild" got me to re-watch my favorite Wong Kar Wai, "In the Mood for Love." I don't think any other moviemaker gets feeling like he does. I love that he captures how emotion can arise from anything, from sounds and colors and looks and a word said a certain way--that plot has so little to do with our longings. And he's obsessed with time, and as much sadness and pain that comes from understanding this concept, he knows how much beauty it gives everything. And nothing beats his lush lush images. Another highlight was Zhang Yimou's "Not One Less" which is such a simple, moving story about a 13-year-old substitute teacher in rural China on an insanely stubborn quest to find one of her students in the city and return him home. Another recommendation for anyone remotely interested, and a non-Asian movie, is "All the Real Girls," a sort of coming-of-age indie except it's the coming-of-age of people who are supposed to be past the time for that. The movie's told in vignettes that tell a linear story but also capture side moments, and everything's very warm and real at the same time. And it's funny, slightly quirky and a little melancholy. Ooph, and Duy and I started watching "The Best of Youth," a six hour Italian movie, without knowing how long it was or what it was about, and that was the best way to see it. It was like reading a book, the events and whole lives unfolding. I'm not doing any of these justice; that's what I get for saving them all up for one entry. I've also watched a slew of really bad movies.

As for music, Snow Patrol was good, especially Chocolate, Set the Fire and Chasing Cars (which I don't even like as much as most people, I rarely listen to it--but it was very full, sung live) but I have to admit that I let the experience be tainted by the obnoxious teenyboppers. I think Duy enjoyed it though, and it was his Christmas present after all. I can't wait for Coachella in a few weeks: Regina Spektor, Jose Gonzalez, RHCP, Tilly & the Wall, Sparklehorse, Arcade Fire and of course my best friend. A few days ago I was most excited for Damien but now I barely focus on that because Jackie & I will be front row center in a solo Damien concert! Eeeeeee!

family/home
The frustrations I felt toward my family for the first half year I came back to California have subsided, not completely gone but the dominating feeling is appreciation. I've grown to know that I don't have to convince them of who I am--they'll draw upon what they've known and maybe in some rare moments see something new. I don't get so frustrated with the fact that they'll be somewhat detached from my present and my future, because they do have my past and that's as much of me as anything else. And for all the things that should make me resentful or annoyed--they are also the reason that in the end, I'm not resentful, because they've been so good to me that I can be a person who sees that over anything else. I really hope that someday I can see my parents' home with them.

cooking
It's pathetic how proud I get over making simple things. But the one new year's resolution I've faithfully kept is the one new recipe a week one. Since then I've successfully made spinach lasagna with prosciutto, sausage & eggplant pasta shells, chicken piccata, breaded and smothered pork chops, quiche (mushroom/bacon/spinach), honey mustard glazed salmon, lemon spaghetti, steamed catfish, chicken/tuna noodle casserole, lemon-lime halibut (actually that one wasn't so successful).

las vegas
What a perfect trip/blockmate reunion! I'm so happy that things went well and that everyone had a good time and that we were all in one place. I'm so grateful to know people who think about things and who get and give all the more because of it. Oh the food, the dancing, the laughs, the carefreeness of happy people in a fake city in a desert.

I used to think friendship was defined by perfect connection, and I think it made me disappointed in the ability to do that. But I feel (rather than just know) now that it's imperfect, it's the unstraightforward ways of reaching out and relating, the differences, the way we balance each other out, the way we love across disconnections, and it's about the surprise, not the expectation, of connection.

california
Being here has been less coming back home and more getting to know a new place. I sit on our porch in our backyard to read, which I rarely did when I actually lived there. My parents keep nagging me about being in the sun when I'm so tan already, which is another thing I've long learned to ignore, and I'm so happy with the warmth. I can consciously feel the difference between this year and last--there was a period of time when each day I felt wonder at the fact that it has been continuously warm, and that there was no harsh winter to break it up. Duy and I took a day drive to Marin County and I saw my first West Coast lighthouse. We took my parents to Half Moon Bay and we read for hours, again in the sun but my parents didn't say anything to me about it this time. I found my new favorite clothing store in SF, on Fillmore Street--Crossroads, which combines pricey vintage pieces with really cheap used clothing sorted by color. I'm awaiting the Cherry Blossom festival in Japantown. Steph and I made our way through Golden Gate Park and walked almost all the way to Ocean Beach (grabbed the bus toward the end), which has very shiny water. The farmer's market at the Ferry Plaza is heaven, and I resisted buying anything for home because so much of the flavor comes from having small bites on the street. I remember A. and I talking about all the different kinds of people who sold items at Haymarket in Boston and all the different kinds of people who come to buy them. Who doesn't love farmer's markets?

I'm going to miss California a lot more when I leave in the fall, than when I left for college. I know it has something to do with the different phases of our lives, how back then it was a home to go back to and now it's a place where I've grown and failed to grow/am still stuck in some ways, and that's not something you can quite go back to. I love my apartment so much, because I poured so much effort into settling--it didn't come immediately or completely naturally. But I'm trying hard not to envision an ideal "place" for myself next year because I want to be open to what comes. I know this is hard for me because I get so fixated on what's ideal.

I feel like amidst all these words I haven't really said anything at all, but that's a little like the way life has been...a flow of things that don't seem much but are everything.

weaknesses and messes

Over the course of an overload of conversations, feelings and observations, I've seen that the judgments we make about what's fair and honest become complicated when applied to romantic relationships. "Complicated" is a copout for a concept that's really too complicated for me to explain. I don't mean that the guidelines have changed, only that I seem to be much more forgiving when they're not followed, now that I've broken them too. We hurt people we care about, unintentionally but also when we know what we're doing even if hurting someone else isn't the purpose of our action. At first this seemed to be an excuse for what I've done--saying that it's an inherent weakness, and in some ways it probably still is an excuse. Yet, I also do believe that this is a part of how people are, and this recognition doesn't mean I'm giving in and will stop trying to be stronger than this weakness.

Growing up I was my brother Stephen's confidante. By the time I was in high school, just 14 which seems so young now, he would tell me about his girlfriends, who he pined for, how he saw love. For years since then I would listen and offer my idealistic views of how things should be: that if this girl was the one, she would love him too; that if that girl cared about him, she wouldn't be so self-centered; that if someone was in a relationship you shouldn't interfere; that if feelings were unrequited it's not meant to be; that if you truly care for someone you can be selfless without losing independence because love is good that way. Easy, unqualified comfort. And if you didn't follow these concepts, you must either not really love a person or you were being too selfish for it to work--something was wrong, in any case.

Now, having gone through certain things and seeing people close to me go through the same and more, I'm less able to harshly judge people's vulnerablities and weaknesses. I have the same sense of what's right, but can understand why people go the other way and I no longer think of them as too weak to do the better thing. Even without feeling all of the same exact things or without having been in the same exact situations, I can understand why a person would stay with someone who's unsure about their love and commitment, why a person wants to let go of something and still half-hang-on, why a person stays because of uncertainty or fear, why we hurt people when we want to be selfless. Feelings like these make you strong and weak in different areas.

I've spent a long time coming to terms with the guilt I felt over being weak about these different things. Part of why it's taken so long is because despite everything, I still have those clean, ideal visions of how things should be; I never expected it to be so messy and fragile. Over time I've become more forgiving to myself and to others. People hurt each other, sometimes because they don't know any better, other times because they thought what the other person might lose wouldn't be as great as what one person or both people gain. All of this is more complex than I could ever fully grasp, it's all such a mess--but the fact is even if we don't completely understand or anticipate, it's still our responsibility to deal with it.

What I really want to say and declare for myself is that even though I'm accepting my weakness, I'm no longer willing to just keep being that way. I can see and imagine the ways in which people hurt one another, and it makes me incredibly grateful for how he has treated me and I absolutely know that he deserves better. It has never been about putting myself down, because though I've learned much about my flaws, what I take away most is knowing what I can give and knowing what I don't know yet. I think I'm more ready now to try and overcome this weakness that seems to plague all of us when we feel. I don't know yet how capable I'll be, but I really want to give it an honest effort. I get scared and guilt returns when I remember that I'm not any better than anyone else, and that selfish desires are not so easily suppressed. But I want to stop dwelling in the middle because of my own needs, because of a need to control things, a need to sustain a closeness, a need to remedy the problem I started. I have to let go of these things, because deep down I still believe in all those things I told Stephen when I was a teenager. It's like I've told people in conversations about these things...when you care about someone there comes a point where you care about them outside of yourself, outside of how they are connected to you.

I still believe that love, in all its forms, can be selfless, and I'm going to try and stop looking to the world to prove it to me, to instead take it into my own hands. I think it'll be okay, and probably less melodramatic than this is making it seem.