A Lesser Beauty: A Dissertation on Love
What I should have done was wait. I should’ve waited, kept working for the literary agent, re-taken the GREs with more focus, and written a new writing sample that adequately addressed my graduate focus: dystopias and existentialism. But what we should do and what we end up doing, those are hardly ever the same thing. Instead I dove into a graduate program I didn’t belong in, in a city I couldn’t stand, because I didn’t want to “waste” my potential. I wanted to shine that undergraduate 3.97 GPA until it fucking sparkled, wanted to dazzle these professors with what I had to offer. Not an X reading of Y, but original thought not as intimately tied to tired critical theory. And it worked, of course. Of course I know how to write paper after paper, read page after page. But somewhere along the way, I broke. There is only so much that a branch will bend before it breaks. (Despite how I rage against this, abject refusal to be “beaten” by anything, instead calling out for allegories of diamonds, made under thousands of pounds of pressure and heat, and why not me, too? Why not? God, why not?)
So, instead of writing my master’s thesis, I’ve been doing a different sort of writing. When books, that had for so long been my savior, my solace, stopped looking like an open hand and more like a warning and a threat, I sought out other avenues. I had alienated each and every one of my friends, convinced that it’s lonely at the top, that academia was worth it in the end, and my colleagues could be my friends, chatting over margaritas and Marxist theory, over PBR and Paul de Man. (Wrong. How could you be so fucking wrong? Cutthroat tactics, and haven’t you always known that there is no honor among thieves?) There was nothing and I had no one. Until I found Kingdom Hearts.
It occurred to me over the summer of 2008 that I should replay KHI and attempt KHII for the first time, having been released while I was in undergrad and dead to the world of current culture. I’d played KHI before, had some inkling of looking up fanfic for Sora and Riku (I caught the fandom bug years ago, Harry and Draco and polyjuice potion and a dizzying, enthralling handful of years), and thought it would be nice to revisit. But I was fragile, then, coming home from classes in the middle of the night. Coming home to an empty bed, a silent phone. So I went to them, to Roxas and Axel. It really was just that simple, that uncomplicated. From that point on, it has been anything but.
In the last two years I should’ve been sitting in lectures, rubbing grey matter against the grindstone of Knowledge, should’ve been mapping out my dissertation. I’d be looking at Ph.D. programs, be frazzled with a teaching assistantship, be slaving over papers that mean absolutely nothing to me. Should’ve been doing all this. Instead? Instead I’ve been writing a different kind of dissertation, one that doesn’t just speak to me, but speaks for me. People spend years writing their dissertations, in dark rooms surrounded with texts, tearing their hair out. And that was me, in dark rooms and empty streets, surrounded by heavy memories and cigarette smoke, tearing my hair out. They call it “laboring” over something, and in that way it is just like giving birth. It is messy, it is bloody, and it fucking hurts no matter how many drugs you take to dull the pain. But there it is, ripped out of me, slapped around. A story about love, not just in its content, but in its structure. I could not have done this thing if I didn’t love these characters, would not have cared enough (sitting at a park on the top of a mountain, tracing my veins with a knife). But there it is: love heals, love transforms. Not just Axel’s love for Roxas or Roxas’ love for Axel, but my love for them. Yes, even if they aren’t real. (Because what is love? Can you see it? Touch it, taste it, smell it? Love happens in the mind, in the heart, and that’s where Axel and Roxas are for me.)
I said in the closing note that writing LB has been the best form of therapy I’ve ever had, and I can’t articulate to you how true this is. Someone asked once if it was cathartic, and I said hell no. In fact, even re-reading it before writing the final chapter threw me into a very dark, dark place. Not easy to read, not easy to write… but at the end, there is a sort of catharsis. The ideas I’ve had about love and friendship, about life and hope, about despair and distraction… I have never understood them more clearly than I do now. How difficult it is to trust people, how weary I am of accepting the love people claim to feel for me. It’s all there, spelled out easy for me. Things that I didn’t previously know, now unearthed. And it’s miraculous, it really is. I had some personal trauma right around the time the last chapter was posted, and it’s sad that it’s going to taint the memory of this time, but… it doesn’t matter. In the end, it really doesn’t. This entire experience has been bigger than me, bigger than any one person. You always want to wince and kinda sneer at the kids that, crying, exclaim that this band or this record “saved” their lives. But, and I’m not going to be embarrassed about it, Kingdom Hearts literally saved my life. The love I feel, the love that has been generated, the love that exists… I’m moving 3,000 miles across the county in one week. I’m terrified. But I’m okay. I’m not tearing my flesh off, sobbing my eyes out, sitting in the dark like a vampire. I’m living, and goddammit, I’m loving, too. Yes, shit gets hard. Yes, the days can be dark. But YES, THINGS WILL GET BETTER. If you can make it through the night, things will get better. They always do. (There is the redundancy here, of course: it will also get worse again; it always does.)
This whole thing isn’t turning out the way I imagined it. I wanted it to be poetic and moving and a proper testament to something that has meant so very much to me. Instead, I can settle for this: honesty. There is a part of me that is sad to say goodbye, but the rest of me is infinitely happier. There is the happy ending they deserve, and while it’s not all perfect, I fucking tried. The best I could do, that only I could do. And, while I’ve struggled with this before, struggled with coming to terms with whatever ability I do or don’t have… it’s enough now. To know that I made this with my hands, nearly 150,000 words of my own fucking heart… yeah, that’s enough.
The last two years have been intense. And, to be honest, shit’s about to start getting about a hundred times more difficult. I’m leaving my Sora on the west coast. Leaving my home, my family, my friends, my entire support system. But you know what’s coming with me? My heart. (And my laptop!) I can’t promise I’ll have much time to write, can’t promise I’ll be very active, but I’m not giving up how I feel about these characters and this fandom. You guys can be a mean bunch of fucking bitches, but you can also be patient, and kind, and caring. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thank you, thank you, thank you forever for seeing Roxas through to the end (to Axel).
So, instead of writing my master’s thesis, I’ve been doing a different sort of writing. When books, that had for so long been my savior, my solace, stopped looking like an open hand and more like a warning and a threat, I sought out other avenues. I had alienated each and every one of my friends, convinced that it’s lonely at the top, that academia was worth it in the end, and my colleagues could be my friends, chatting over margaritas and Marxist theory, over PBR and Paul de Man. (Wrong. How could you be so fucking wrong? Cutthroat tactics, and haven’t you always known that there is no honor among thieves?) There was nothing and I had no one. Until I found Kingdom Hearts.
It occurred to me over the summer of 2008 that I should replay KHI and attempt KHII for the first time, having been released while I was in undergrad and dead to the world of current culture. I’d played KHI before, had some inkling of looking up fanfic for Sora and Riku (I caught the fandom bug years ago, Harry and Draco and polyjuice potion and a dizzying, enthralling handful of years), and thought it would be nice to revisit. But I was fragile, then, coming home from classes in the middle of the night. Coming home to an empty bed, a silent phone. So I went to them, to Roxas and Axel. It really was just that simple, that uncomplicated. From that point on, it has been anything but.
In the last two years I should’ve been sitting in lectures, rubbing grey matter against the grindstone of Knowledge, should’ve been mapping out my dissertation. I’d be looking at Ph.D. programs, be frazzled with a teaching assistantship, be slaving over papers that mean absolutely nothing to me. Should’ve been doing all this. Instead? Instead I’ve been writing a different kind of dissertation, one that doesn’t just speak to me, but speaks for me. People spend years writing their dissertations, in dark rooms surrounded with texts, tearing their hair out. And that was me, in dark rooms and empty streets, surrounded by heavy memories and cigarette smoke, tearing my hair out. They call it “laboring” over something, and in that way it is just like giving birth. It is messy, it is bloody, and it fucking hurts no matter how many drugs you take to dull the pain. But there it is, ripped out of me, slapped around. A story about love, not just in its content, but in its structure. I could not have done this thing if I didn’t love these characters, would not have cared enough (sitting at a park on the top of a mountain, tracing my veins with a knife). But there it is: love heals, love transforms. Not just Axel’s love for Roxas or Roxas’ love for Axel, but my love for them. Yes, even if they aren’t real. (Because what is love? Can you see it? Touch it, taste it, smell it? Love happens in the mind, in the heart, and that’s where Axel and Roxas are for me.)
I said in the closing note that writing LB has been the best form of therapy I’ve ever had, and I can’t articulate to you how true this is. Someone asked once if it was cathartic, and I said hell no. In fact, even re-reading it before writing the final chapter threw me into a very dark, dark place. Not easy to read, not easy to write… but at the end, there is a sort of catharsis. The ideas I’ve had about love and friendship, about life and hope, about despair and distraction… I have never understood them more clearly than I do now. How difficult it is to trust people, how weary I am of accepting the love people claim to feel for me. It’s all there, spelled out easy for me. Things that I didn’t previously know, now unearthed. And it’s miraculous, it really is. I had some personal trauma right around the time the last chapter was posted, and it’s sad that it’s going to taint the memory of this time, but… it doesn’t matter. In the end, it really doesn’t. This entire experience has been bigger than me, bigger than any one person. You always want to wince and kinda sneer at the kids that, crying, exclaim that this band or this record “saved” their lives. But, and I’m not going to be embarrassed about it, Kingdom Hearts literally saved my life. The love I feel, the love that has been generated, the love that exists… I’m moving 3,000 miles across the county in one week. I’m terrified. But I’m okay. I’m not tearing my flesh off, sobbing my eyes out, sitting in the dark like a vampire. I’m living, and goddammit, I’m loving, too. Yes, shit gets hard. Yes, the days can be dark. But YES, THINGS WILL GET BETTER. If you can make it through the night, things will get better. They always do. (There is the redundancy here, of course: it will also get worse again; it always does.)
This whole thing isn’t turning out the way I imagined it. I wanted it to be poetic and moving and a proper testament to something that has meant so very much to me. Instead, I can settle for this: honesty. There is a part of me that is sad to say goodbye, but the rest of me is infinitely happier. There is the happy ending they deserve, and while it’s not all perfect, I fucking tried. The best I could do, that only I could do. And, while I’ve struggled with this before, struggled with coming to terms with whatever ability I do or don’t have… it’s enough now. To know that I made this with my hands, nearly 150,000 words of my own fucking heart… yeah, that’s enough.
The last two years have been intense. And, to be honest, shit’s about to start getting about a hundred times more difficult. I’m leaving my Sora on the west coast. Leaving my home, my family, my friends, my entire support system. But you know what’s coming with me? My heart. (And my laptop!) I can’t promise I’ll have much time to write, can’t promise I’ll be very active, but I’m not giving up how I feel about these characters and this fandom. You guys can be a mean bunch of fucking bitches, but you can also be patient, and kind, and caring. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Thank you, thank you, thank you forever for seeing Roxas through to the end (to Axel).