TWO STEPS FORWARD AND ONE STEP BACK
Years are arbitrary markers of time. I find that the most important changes in my life are not so much flash points as they are tectonic plates changing over time. I cleaned out my home library this winter break, and reorganized everything to fit my growing collection of books. In doing so, I unearthed a plethora of high school writing assignments. Most of them use lurid SAT vocabulary to describe poems and assigned books. This is one such assignment, but it is also my favorite high school assignment - to use James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to examine my own personal growth. I'd written it in my last semester of high school; I was on the cusp of eighteen years old when I penned this. And to celebrate the end of absolutely nothing at all, I have opted to reread and reflect upon this essay.
Et Ignotas animum dimittit in artes.
– Ovid, Metamorphoses; epigraph of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
It was in the middle of a sentence in which I realized it. I’d walked a little closer toward my self. It wasn’t always so clear though. My childhood was red light, green light. Red fish, yellow fish, all up a tree. Oh the places you’ll go! My childhood consisted of Dr. Seuss books and self-entertainment, as an introverted and sensitive only child. I was physically weak and sought not the company of my classmates – reminiscent of Stephen Dedalus himself – preferring my own imagination as my best friend. “Should I say sorry at this point?” “What did I do?” “What should I say?” I was a socially awkward child. In lieu of actually understanding social cues and interacting with others, I followed my would-be friends around, a baby duckling who had imprinted on the wrong object. I knew nothing outside that little microcosm.
-- Hello, hello, who is there? I don’t know where I am. I am lost.
-- Hello, hello, you are a funny child. So small and weak. Where is your self?
-- Thank you? Myself? I am here. I don’t know. I don’t.
The hallmark of my childhood was pathos. I transferred to Notre Dame Elementary School in the beginning of fourth grade as one of the only non-Catholics in a Catholic school – and knew it from the start. I attempted to make friends, but my introverted persona thwarted that. I ended up trying to bond with a certain girl, but she would just take me to a deserted place on the playground, tell me to wait, and never return. I would just stare at the space where she used to be and wonder where everything went wrong. Eventually, I did go up to a teacher to try and resolve the problem but nothing changed. My teacher told my parents, “Don’t worry, it’s just a phase, she’ll grow out of it.” My eyes grew wide to the callousness of adults; it was a shadow of how Stephen felt when he found out the rector didn’t take him seriously either.
-- Hello, hello, I am still lost. Where are you?
-- Are you still lost, little duckling? Look around your world more. Do you see your self?
-- See what? I am myself. I don’t know what you mean. Where are you?
The weight of not being a Catholic started to press upon my soul, like attempting to breathe through a wet blanket. Everyone else wore Juicy Couture and Hollister and talked about rap music. I wanted so badly to fit in. So I started to pressure my mother to buy me name brands and I started to listen to rap and I stopped singing in music class because singing was considered idiotic. But I was still set apart – the introverted model student who talked little. And I was bullied for it. I was teased by a class full of Herons and Bolands and Nashes for not being a Catholic or extremely extroverted – a heretic in every sense of the word.
-- Hello, hello, I am miserable. I try so hard and yet I go nowhere.
-- Still so weak, so impressionable. Tell me, what is your goal? Where is your self?
-- I am here, what do you mean by my self? What? I don’t know why they don’t like me.
I applied to St. Ignatius Preparatory for high school, hoping to avoid the crush of public school. I was politely waitlisted, declined from admission, and admitted to Mills High School. Since I had been isolated in middle school, I learned to isolate myself in my own little world in order to avoid the pain and hurt, becoming the version of Stephen that was constantly amending for his sin. I attempted to be a good friend to a classmate and tried to integrate myself into her world constantly. But her boyfriend wasn’t as accommodating to my idiosyncrasies. Yet, I tried to appease him through candy and silence about his cheating on her. This continued on until one day, where I hid his backpack as a joke and he reacted violently, shoving me to the ground. I was staring up at the cloudy sky, thinking, what was I doing? Where was I going? My life was painfully hollow. I hadn’t been going anywhere for a long time, but only realized it just now.
-- Hello, hello. I am nothing and I see this and that is something.
-- No longer lost, are you? Do you see your self?
-- I see where I am and just how far I have to go.
-- You know what to do now. Go forth. Pax.
I started to observe my peers more. I developed my interest in art and politics and found Model UN and international relations. While Stephen founded his thesis on aesthetics, I integrated economics, philosophy, art, and literature into my own globalized brand of logic and thought. I became my own person, with wit and snark – and I found the friends I had always wanted. During a discussion in International Relations, Mr. Phillips said, “Your classmates have recurrent themes. David will emphasize human rights, Ryan will remind us about national sovereignty, and Adrienne will talk about economic development.” Halfway throughout that sentence, I found it. I’d found a semblance of who I wanted to be out of the remnants of who I used to be. I’d found my weltanschauung. But to finish it, I have to travel to other places, meet other people, and develop my philosophy further. Take the clay. Mold it. Modify it many times. Then put it in the kiln and fire it. Voila! A person. Yet a person is more than the sum of its clay parts, and that is because there is life breathed into him or her.
-- Hello there. I know I have grown. But just a little bit.
-- The fact that you have matured and say it is nothing says that you know something.
-- If you say so, daimōn. I am no longer lost. I know my path and its difficulties. But, I have immense faith in myself. Perhaps that was all I was lacking before.
Per aspera ad astra, a dean of studies says to Stephen. To be who I want to be is not an easy task, but one must aspire past the difficulties to the stars. I will change and evolve, metamorphose, and surpass even my own expectations.
Earlier today, I had an argument with my mother that raised a lot of bad blood between the two of us. It is rare, because she is the quietest and calmest person in my life. By contrast, I am argumentative, and I enjoy debate and discussion. I thrive in it - I wouldn't have decided to do Model UN for six years otherwise, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My mother sees it as inspiring strife and discord in the household. Until today, I simply dismissed it as part of my mother's pacifist nature, but today I felt ashamed of myself because she had raised real points about how my absolute need to have it my way or completely disengage are destructive. I'm not a bad person, but I can definitely be a better person.
In some ways, I realized that I am still very much the person who isolated herself from the world when she didn't have what she wanted immediately. I want people to make me food, clean my room, and meld themselves into my world. It should have been left in childhood, but I still want to be coddled. When I was eighteen and wrote this essay, I was just learning how to be a real friend, how to engage with other people in a meaningful manner, and how to make me like who I was more. I was tired of being alone, and I wanted friends. I was finding myself for the sake of myself.
I have friends now, and I am fortunate that my closest companions in life have expressed the fact that they missed me in DC. I have finally found that I enjoy who I am, and I am glad to have found myself for the sake my own life. But now, I need to put aside that selfishness and childishness, and find a better version of myself for others. I shouldn't have a mother who holds her tongue from scolding her child because she knows what she says will not get through her daughter's thick skull. I should not have friends who find my tongue too acerbic. I'm sorry for hurting people. And so, I will find myself for the sake of people whom I care about.
It is not a resolution for 2016, it is a resolution for life.
I am reminded by one of my favorite comic book stories. It is the precursor to the All-New All-Different Ultimates series, written by Al Ewing and pencilled by Kenneth Rocafort. In this one-shot story, America Chavez (whose superhero name is Miss America) must find a way to heal a rift in the universe. She's one of my favorite characters in the entire Marvel universe: a no-nonsense Latina lesbian woman who comes from an alternate dimension. She flies at supersonic speeds, has super-strength, and can open wormholes across time and space. The Young Avengers fandom's maxim for her is: she's beauty, she's grace, she'll punch you in the face. So when America finds that rift in the universe, readers would think that it was just another problem to get punched, another door to get slammed shut, an evil that needed to be brought to its knees. But no, America says that it's a hole as big as the world - too big for anger and duty. Instead, she calls her girlfriend to come help her save the universe. What results is pure magic, the reason I read comics, and my favorite lines of any comic published in 2015 (and that is a hard list to top): "What's a happy thought as big as a world? What's the opposite of kicking?" Dancing. It's dancing.
More than punching my way through life, I've learned I need to dance. I need to stop viewing everything as something to be fought or plowed through. I don't need to be fighting or raising my weapon all the time. Sometimes I need to do the opposite of kicking, and it'll make all the difference someday.
Since high school, I figured I've taken two steps forward and one step back. But it's okay. Even when I'm waltzing, you take steps forward and back. But I keep dancing anyway.