somewhere in New Jersey
mid-December 2018
This afternoon, 8 coworkers and I drove to a Veterans’ hospital. Never before had I driven by so many handicap parking spaces nor had I
been in the same room as so many wheelchairs. I don’t know how to say this properly but most people, both employees and patients,
looked rather sad and tired. We swiftly set out tons of gift bags (picking out the perfume and candy because alcoholic and sugary gifts
were prohibited) and set up two tables-full of food and drinks. I played classical piano (Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, etc.) while my coworkers
MCed and handed out desserts.
There was not much Christmas spirit in the room; everyone was literally dying, the odd holiday chorus was disgruntled when they
weren’t performing and smug when they were. Someone in a wheelchair kept yelling “cheesecake” when no one would bring him a slice
because, as a tired nurse gently explained to him, it would probably kill him.
We did our best to say “thank you for your service” through our actions. At least we were doing what we could. At least we were there.
At least we were doing the right thing.
That’s how I often felt the past few years — hacking together what I thought might possibly be the right thing to do in new situations. I
stumbled around and moved apartments every few months, and changed jobs and industries seemingly all the time. After graduating
from Cornell in 2014, I started a PhD program at Stanford. The work was easy enough, the place was immaculate and comfortable, and
this oddly became the perfect set-up for OCD and depression. I looked up plane tickets to Denmark (famous for their legal assisted
suicide), obsessively imagined my significant other being disloyal to the point where I couldn’t leave my apartment to go to meetings,
and lost a lot of weight. Sometimes I cried despite trying to put on a strong face. My boyfriend at the time was verbally and emotionally
abusive, one night bashing his hand on the bed headboard, dripping blood all over the sheets, showing his brightly reddened knuckles
to me, and screaming, “look what you did” after I had only gently tapped his shoulder to tell him that I felt down one night. We got
engaged, moved to the Upper West Side and then to Columbus Circle, and I started unraveling what “abuse” really meant. I learned that
abusers are generally emotionally stable and healthy, fully aware of their actions despite claiming to have “forgotten” themselves.
Contrary to our expectations, abusers exert an enormous amount of power over their partners and are in complete control of their
actions. Learning this, I ran away in late February this year, a little sad to leave the beautiful little apartment that I had decorated as a
permanent home, and glad to leave my engagement ring in the closet jewelry drawer and never look back.
The next morning, I donned a down jacket and walked freely in the sunlight to the grocery store. In that moment, I felt fully content and
fully safe. Except that I had become an official New Jersey resident (I know!).
Every time you and I thought this year was too hard, we arrived to cheer each other on and help each other rediscover what it means to
live a full life. Together, we went to Rosemary Beach for its white sands and master-planned layout, played a 4 vs. 4 battleship-like war
simulation game with a lot of yelling, visited the Brooklyn Zoo to (guiltily) look at caged snakes and bears and furry mice, realized our
parents favored our little siblings, won a 5-hour cybersecurity competition, drank extremely briefly at NYC Santacon and said no to
cocaine in a public bathroom, presented to and shook hands with CEOs, the head of the IMF, and a former US Secretary of Homeland
Security, asked everyone how far they got on Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu!, brewed over existential problems while drinking mulled wine,
gathered concrete evidence that revealed one our best friends to be a psychopath, learned about the reality of micropenises, read
Becoming to get inspiration from Michelle Obama, and stood through an awful DJ set in Brooklyn with admittedly entertaining videos of
deep sea anenomes.
Meanwhile, a former coworker finally transitioned to the gender she was born to be, a former classmate quit the prestigious PhD
program that was making him sad, a high school brother lost 20 pounds and hit the gym, a grad school classmate ran multiple
marathons in multiple countries and managed to barely even brag about it, and a childhood friend somehow performed in an official
Studio Ghibli orchestra in Los Angeles. Others bravely waded through anxiety, OCD, narcissism, depression, loneliness, abusive
significant others, the loss of best friends, and the loss of who they used to be.
I am thankful for what we have conquered and hopeful that we will do even more as long as we have each others’ friendship.
Please stay in touch — even if you simply need something.
Love always.
It’s good to be loved; it’s profound to be understood. Portia de Rossi
Unable are the Loved to die / For Love is Immortality... Emily Dickinson
It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending on a good deal of luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be
lucky. E.B. White
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the
taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks. A good night’s sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace.
Somebody loving you is grace. Frederick Buechner
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his
heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the
Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. J.R.R. Tolkien
