The Bigger Picture

There are some days that are so wrought with problems that they must clearly be the design of a twisted comedian who has suddenly decided that your life would be the butt of the world’s jokes for one day. In times like these, the human spirit is equiped with a number of responses. Some shine their shoes with the last penny in their pocket. Some laugh along with the comedic nature, and some throw their arms up in dispair.

Then there are the times that are so full of drama that one response bleeds into another. You’re laughing and crying at the same time, while your friend tentatively offers you a tissue, and buys you a cup of coffee which you promptly spill half of down your sweater. You go home to change and the minute you walk in the door, the crabby roommate slams her bedroom door shut, and as you’re running out the door (late, for yet another class) you slam the front door in an unmistakable response. Childish, but true.

An hour later, sitting in Labor Economics, focusing on pareto efficiencies and indifference curves, the words on your laptop blur on the screen, and you look up realizing that the professor has pasted on her face, a look of utmost concern. And while sitting there, trying to regain composure, you find that your heart feels too heavy, and your eyes unable to hold back their tears and so you excuse yourself for the first time in your life, to the ladies room, and unleash a torrent of tears that you yourself can’t explain.

That is of course, a torrent in between the people coming and going from the bathroom. You find it ridiculous that you’re actually holding your breath while the person in the next stall finishes their business, and you have both hands clamped over your mouth to muffle the hiccups, which unable to escape through your lips, silently find their way out of your body any way they can – in the tremors of your shoulders, the upward cast of your eyes, the catatonic rocking of your body as you’re trying to regain control. Twenty ridiculous minutes later, you leave your stall (again, timed to another’s entry), hastily splash some water on your face and slip back into the classroom.

Of course, there aren’t so many people that they fail to notice that you’ve missed a quarter of the class. And the few tears that well up in your eyes, you pretend you’re just rubbing your eyes, or that it’s your contacts. But soon enough, the calm rationale of economics takes over. Behavior quantified and plotted on neat little charts, so orderly and sensible. And the economist in you begins to calmnly take stock of the situation at hand.

So what of the family drama, the fears and the anxiety? You organize the pressures from most pressing to least, resolve not to worry about certain scenarios until you have more information. You systematically make your plan – adding and dropping the necessary courses, rehearse difficult conversations you need to have with administrators. And above all, you resist the urge to spin out of control, watching your career, your law school applications and your dreams move further beyond your reach. You realize that though today might have been a colossal joke that God’s been playing on you, a sick and twisted farce, it nonetheless still means that God is watching and does notice you. And maybe what you’re missing is the perspective to see the bigger picture. The sixty odd years still left to go, and how these huge mountains are merely wrinkles in the fabric of time. Because if you believe in destiny (which, you do. In some rough shape or form) no number of irresponsible parents, thoughtless individuals or any other form of challenges can come between one small girl and divine providence.

the ambition curse

They say that in a few years, none of this really matters. Your GPA, your SATs, and a variety of other acronymns that we spend so much time and energy stressing about. What they don’t say is that ambition can be a curse. A constant gnawing fear that you’re not meeting expectations, your own or otherwise.

I think my brand of senioritis is a constant feeling of incompetancy. Wanting to re-do everything again. While I was living the previous semester, I thought things were going well. Now standing in 2007, I realize the normous number of mistakes I made and its a massive burden to my already downtrodden spirits.

Whether because of my own pride or fear, I’m unable to share this with anyone. I just don’t know who to turn to for advice on my job search, the frustrations I’m having, or the fact that my father has begun the search for me. A fact that I’ve only said out loud twice. Without going into too much detail, I’ve decided that if he is looking for me (probably not too hard, anyway) it doesn’t fundamentally change anything. In a few months, I will have graduated and will be supporting myself. Even if he had been around all along, it still would not change the current position that I’m in and the challenges that I face. As I see it, the only thing he might possibly contribute is stress or drama. Neither of which I need right now. Based on this deductive approach, it’s best that we not be in touch right now.

Of course, real life is never this logical. You can’t game-theorize your way into a resolution with two estranged parents. But what is painfully true however, is the anxiety I feel in my need to overcome challenges. Sometimes I forget that I don’t actually live in the shadow of my parents. That to go through life constantly trying to prove them wrong is no way to live.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a plan.  A long-term goal and a systematic means of executing it. It seems like I’ve been developing skills that are broad, and not specific. Sometimes its hard to remember to drown out all the chatter that surrounds you. The people that tell you “oh, everything will be okay” and the well-meant encouragement. Sometimes you forget the pressures you face, the anxiety of your position as an international student and an independent. You forget that the ordinary rules don’t really apply to you because there are just more challenges.

Maybe this while experience is good for me.. to learn something about myself and how much I attribute to living up and beyond others’ expectations of me. Maybe my sense of fulfillment is rooted far too much in what I do, rather than who I am. Maybe what I need to learn to do is hold my head up – regardless of my position.