Isat in Hastings staring at my screen, overwhelmed by a sense of weariness as I grappled with a possible idea of the “perfect” Bison article, when I realized that imperfection would be better. It’s what I have, and if nothing else, I’ll have my honesty leftover.
Remember that scene from “X-Men: Days of Future Past” when Tate from “American Horror Story” is flying around the kitchen in the Pentagon, setting all of the unwitting civil servants up to destroy themselves? The past year has sort of been like that for me. Except I’m one of the guys in the vests who hate mutants and the soundtrack is much worse. A few highlights: I made friends with my parents — they are super cool, who knew — I worked a bunch, I didn’t save enough, I went overseas, I developed crippling insomnia which caused a relapse into depression. Side note: In case anyone is wondering, sleep is sort of fundamental when attempting to function as a real live person. If you enjoy good sleep, value that sucker, because you’re #blessed to have it. I also added another major and started paying attention to politics. Now I find myself with a lower GPA, single — hey — at a new job and taking a tiny number of credit hours. Meanwhile, I’m working to figure out why I can’t sleep or read or write the way that I used to and trying to decide if all of that’s such a bad thing after all.
Nevertheless, I find myself in an awkward position. Especially when it comes to people asking relatively harmless questions such as “How many hours are you taking?” I answer “seven,” and the well-intentioned eyebrows automatically go up. I can see it behind the soaring eyebrows. I am transformed into one of “those people” — one of “those people” who get suspended for having a sip of alcohol on their birthday. “Those people” whose grades are so bad they’re put on academic probation. You know about them. Whether internally or externally, we speculate about them — whoever they are and whatever they did. How strange to be one. I didn’t feel too guilty about only taking seven hours this semester until I told my friends. Nearly every time I divulged this information the confession was met with that familiar pitying look — and sometimes hugs, but I’m pretty much always cool with those. I was confused the first time this happened. Taking fewer hours is a positive thing for me at this point, isn’t that obvious? That sad look is rooted in a generally accepted idea of what a college career should look like. When I’m measured against that standard now, I fall short of it. It was embarrassing at first and is still humbling today. My academic performance can no longer be the well from which I replenish my self-confidence, and I am so much better for losing that external source. But those pitying looks I’ve received are also rooted in something else, a pervasive fault in our selective memory. We are all “those” people, every single one of us.
It’s been a challenging year and I’m exhausted and uncertain and grateful. I’m grateful because the challenging situations have brought about more love in my relationships, a greater number of opportunities and a healthier mind, none of which would have been possible without each painful and necessary episode. I hold this idea close: good and bad things will happen to everyone with absolutely no favor and no consideration. It is only one’s own interpretation of, and reaction to, those things that dictates the worth and usefulness that they are allowed to have in the context of a life. Falling short daily, I rest in knowing that God has written grace over every day of the past year, and that he writes far more beautifully than I.
