Distance

I'm generally amazed at the paradox of time: the fact that it can drag by painfully slow, but that in hindsight it always gives the appearance of having slipped by quickly and stealthily. I count my days by quizzes, exams, projects, and commitments. I tend to think of every day, or week, as something to get through, and feel no slight pain in doing so. I try to keep focused during lectures on topics that I don't understand because they are phrased in grammar that is awkward. The language by which it is delivered to me seems to grow inorganically out of Excel spreadsheets . . . the words seem confined to individual cells that serve only as fodder for algorithms and charts. They don't speak to me. Everything is blank of emotion and purpose.

I want pictures that don't fit into rows and columns.


Several months ago I met a musician, and conversation eventually unearthed the fact that I used to play guitar, and write songs, and do my best impersonation of a musical artist. He asked me why I stopped. . . . I'm never sure how to answer that question. It's not as though I don't have any answers for it; there are plenty. None of these actually suffices to express the real reason though. When I give an answer, it comes in a format of problems that could be solved. But, as with so many other things in life, it's not the individual problems that are the actual cause. Rather it is the strange synthesis of them all at once, at one particular place, experienced in one particular way that determine the course of one's decisions.

I recall in college how deeply I felt the need to express myself. I assume a great deal of this was due to the deep sense of confusion I carried over who I actually was. I think this was the impulse that drove my futile attempt at becoming a musician. I hoped that in expressing myself through music, I might thereafter understand myself. It helped, I think. At least at first. Eventually I was confronted with the difference between musicians and those who play music, or to say it differently, I learned the difference between the music I wanted to hear, and that which I was capable of creating. To really express myself with music, thus required a degree of skill that I was lacking. Self-discovery would demand that I choose a different route.

Somewhere in this epiphany I felt an enormous sense of relief, so I take it to be a good thing.

When I was a nurse, living on my own in the middle of (metaphorical) nowhere I remember regaining a sense of purpose in a particular realization. It's not one that is easy to put into words. The best I can say is that in realizing who we want to be, we must decide to be that person even in the process of becoming such. This was the result of working on a hospital floor, and the experiences I had there. I felt that connecting with people in that setting was not only fulfilling personally, but also useful. Whether coworkers or patients, I realized that much of what goes on in the medical setting was expressive of both who I was and who I wanted to be.

There was no audience clapping at the end of my shifts, no strangers approaching me to get to know the artist. Yet it was more than enough. It was real. I was real. The patients were real. I felt I understood myself perfectly in those moments, and even more that I was helping others in that process of understanding.

It amazes me now that it seems like such a long time ago. It has been over two years since I came back to school, and I've been anything but steadfast in holding to the goals I had in coming back. Yet, I find more and more comfort mixed in with fear as my life has narrowed down to this path. I think, because I realize increasingly that this is me.

So, now as I wander through a barren wasteland of molecular orbitals, accelerations, torque, graphs with trendlines, statistics of electrons that all seem so foreign and impenetrable. I feel far removed from who I am, and want to be. I can see it, though: coming slowly, yet here and so far behind. The humanity missing in this moment will return as my voice.