Try as I might, I will always have a bone to pick with the pop-psych concepts of grit and resilience, far past their disregard for intersectionality. We emphasize the motivation of the individual more than the impacts of the environment they’re in all too often. It’s not an excuse, of course, for not getting back up again (like Haruki Murakami once wrote, “we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.”), but it is a reminder that, in some cases, we cannot be in control.
I try to be lionhearted and courageous, if not for me then for those I love. But, like Anne Sexton said in The Truth the Dead Know: “It is June. I am tired of being brave.” Sometimes, I just want to crumble, not stand up, rest.
Then I remember that it is June, and that the beginnings of summer are some of the most liberating and joy-filled months of the year. I may never spend another summer home with my siblings, with my parents, in my hometown. It’s the small things. In the words of Maud Hart Lovelace, “It was June, and the world smelled of roses.”
On Isolation:
I recently checked out All About Love by Gloria Jean Watkins (pen name: bell hooks) from the library. As dated as it reads, All About Love hits on the idea that “self-love cannot flourish in isolation,” contrary to what most articles about embracing solitude online say. Watkins writes that the simple axioms we use to promote ‘being okay with being alone’—that it’s easy and that anyone can do it—often lead to comparative guilt and lowered esteem. I agree.
It’s the most human thing to crave being known. Natalie Diaz said it best when she writes, “I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.” I’ve spent a lot of time alone during this gap year—fearing being forgotten and being replaced. The time for self-reflection was great and, yes, solitude is supposedly the best mental remedy, but we need interaction, however small, with others and with our environments, to know ourselves to our fullest capacity. Sharing stories and experiences is how we grow. Like Watkins elaborates, “rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”
“You cannot make everyone think and feel as deeply as you do. This is your tragedy, because you understand them but they do not understand you.” - Daniel Saint
A professor once commented that my writing is metacognitive to a distinct degree. I don’t have much to say about this (I really just liked the quote), but it is interesting the burden of perception and how we are perceived.
“The Patience of Ordinary Things” - Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
On Being an Ivy League Dropout:
The University of Pennsylvania—frequently confused for Pennsylvania State University—is described by its Instagram bio as “a member of the Ivy League…one of the oldest universities in America and one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the world.”
Despite its lack of name recognition, Penn boasts a lot of high rankings: number one for business, number one for nursing, number one for most depressed student body. The prestige wasn’t what drew me to Penn though. I chose Penn because students there seemed to have direction. They were who I wanted to be: innately selfish with their dreams and time.
I came into one of the top business schools in the world, perhaps the strongest undergraduate pipeline to Wall Street and Corporate America, wanting to pursue business ethics academia, then non-profit management, then financial regulation. Every step I took felt like it was against the grain of my classmates and the culture of the school. It was exhausting—no upperclassmen to ask for advice, no resources for untraditional pathways. The closest mentor I had to my age was an upwards 70 year old professor.
What I lacked in corporate ambition I made up for in desperation. My primary motivator being a fear Sylvia Plath explains too well: “what horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.” I threw myself into my extracurriculars. I took insane credit units, worked each day until 3am. I put everything and everyone before myself. I was too stubborn to ask for help, no one around me seemed to. The same way Plath wrote “there is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get,” I screamed the verse into a pillow.
It didn’t take long for my body to stop complying with the demands I made. Health forced me to take a leave of absence from college this past year.
Being an Ivy League dropout, however temporary, was a steep learning curve. Like most students at Penn (and from what I can assume similar schools) my identity rested in the major I chose and the university I went to. I didn’t know who I was outside of my professional aspirations. It seems arbitrary now, but those club positions and educational responsibilities and friendships were my world. What I needed, aside from listening to my doctors, was for my world to focus on me.
I don’t regret going to Penn—circumstances would have happened regardless of the university I chose. However, I wish I didn’t try to compensate so hard for what I thought I didn’t have: a cautionary tale, I think, for anyone struggling with imposter syndrome. We’ll see if these lessons stick when I return to campus this fall.
Song Recommendations for You:
“Tangerine” - grouptherapy., Jadagrace, TJOnline
“Love You So” - Natalie
“one day” - Nevi
“Please Please Please” - Sabrina Carpenter
“Sweet Boy” - Malcolm Todd
On Traveling Alone:
I think everyone should travel alone at least once in their lives, if you have the means to do so. There’s something freeing about being independent and surrounding yourself with a world and a culture open to your exploration.
During my year off from school, I had the privilege to travel and live where my heart took me—health abiding: Vietnam, California, Taiwan, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, London, Texas, Washington D.C., Hawaii, South Korea, Maryland, Arkansas. Partly funded by research grants and mostly fueled by my own pocket, these adventures taught me to ask for help, how to eat until I couldn’t feel my stomach, how to breathe. In each place, most of all, I met people who made foreign ground feel like home.