(no subject)
This is a moment for the history books: Cara has finished her essay 16 hours ahead of when it's due. Revised, perfected, everything. This is truly an amazing moment.
The Second Year
“First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest,” kids used to sing in elementary school. Whenever there was an opportunity to line up for anything - be it as long as a trek to the gym or as short as to the bathrooms around the corner - there would always be a mad rush to be first. Once the dust had settled, however, whoever had won the battle to be head of the line would be subjected to this snotty, whiny rhyme from the person second in line. It could go on for ages, too, the person second putting down the fourth and fifth kids with other badly rhymed verses, all just to make the second person feel better.
Even then we all knew the truth: second is never the best. Firsts are glorious, fresh, exciting, and, most importantly, singular. There can only be one first. The intense rush of feelings can only be had by that one first person or at that one first time. It’s just never quite the same the second time. Once that finish line ribbon’s been broken, those who follow can’t break it again. Once someone’s walked through fresh snow, it’s just not as beautiful. Once you’ve seen Paris, you can’t see it with that same emersion of novelty, of curiosity, of emotion ever again.
Last year was a year of firsts for me. From the moment I stepped out of my parents’ car as they dropped me off at my dorm, taking my first steps of freedom, everything was fresh and new. My bedroom walls stayed empty and undecorated for a couple of months to prolong the feeling of just having moved in. Every night at the dining hall I ate something new (albeit not so flavorful and exciting). I went to parties and for the first time, I was completely anonymous - even I was something fresh and novel everywhere I went. I met new people, explored new places, and had new experiences every single day. And every day I felt that little rush that comes with a first, that spike of adrenaline, that sense of adventure even within the most mundane environments.
For most people, the freshness of freshman year wears off over time, but for me, it just kept on coming. Gradually I made new friends, who brought even more firsts with them: my first trip to Kansas City, my first book signing, my first trip stargazing. As my first fall turned into my first winter - Texas does not have proper seasons, you see - I experienced my first snow, with which came my first proper coat, my first attempt at driving on ice, my first fall down a (short) flight of frozen-over stairs. But most importantly, winter brought my first serious relationship.
Love made everything a first once again, because now I was doing those things for the first time with him. I went to my first concert with him. I went to my first party with him. I had my first trip to Kansas City with him. Even things I’d done most of my life became new and exciting again because now I had someone I loved to do them with. There had always been birthdays and holidays and rainy days and just plain days - but now they were days with him, and that made every day exciting, every day a rush.
I was a full-fledged addict to novelty. And I couldn’t have been happier.
It’s a strange sensation having to leave a place for three months, only to come back again. It’s almost as if you expect time to have stood still while you were away. As I drove into Lawrence a month ago, I was shocked to see that small things had changed. “What happened to the Merc?” I messaged a friend as I drove into town. I walked down Mass Street to find new restaurants and businesses open. My friend Alex had a new haircut, and had moved out of his parents’ basement; Lacy had gotten a nose piercing. Small changes.
The school year has a funny way of reminding you of the passage of time. The first week of school, before classes started, the same exact events occurred on campus that I attended last year as a freshman. For old times sake, I went to a few of them. Surrounded by unsettled and excited freshman, I was reminded of just what it felt like to be on campus for the first time. I fed off their energy - we were at college! College is exciting! Everything is fun and fresh and new again!
And, for a while, things were. There were reunions with the friends and boyfriend I hadn’t seen the entire summer. There were new classes, with new people and new subject matter. There was a new apartment to move into, new walls to decorate and drawers to fill. I covered the walls in memorabilia from last year - flyers and ticket stubs for shows I went to, posters I had in my dorm room, photographs from those great moments of last year - and laid out the items on my desk the exact same way as on my desk the year before. In a whirlwind of newness, small bits of the past were something comfortable to come home to.
But unlike freshman year, the freshness of sophomore years soon wore off.
I have a bad habit of listening to the same music over and over again, for weeks at a time, until I burn out on it and can’t stand to listen to it until months later. When I come back to a song later, the first few seconds of it send a twinge through my body, a mere second of a flashback to the time when I was listening to it constantly. Last winter, I listened to Wilco’s album “A Ghost is Born,” an album my boyfriend introduced me to. Often the flashbacks are of nothing more than inconsequential, everyday moments in my past: I listen to “Handshake Drugs” and I think of pea coats and snow and the feeling of the cold on my face as I walked to class. I listen to “Muzzle of Bees,” and I can instantly sense the greyness of winter surrounding me, as if I’m back taking the long, slow walk from my boyfriend’s dorm to my own. My heart pounds, my body feels heavy, I can’t distinguish between the feeling of the loss of last year, or the loss of our relationship, or if, in this instance, they’re one in the same.
Everywhere I walk, I imagine what I was doing last year at this time. I have a keen memory that inscribes my past in obsessive detail, so that I remember exact dates and locations, massive amounts of minutia about the most mundane daily moments of my life. I celebrate ridiculous anniversaries - one year since my first Lawrence concert, my first college kiss, the first day I had lunch with my friend Cole on Wescoe beach. When, where, what Cole was eating that one afternoon (pizza, breadsticks, and a Blueberry B-Monster Odwalla Fruit Smoothie) - I remember it all. I wear the same outfits to the same events - the red cap on the third day of English, the black dress to the first party of the year Kevin and Bryan hosted. I walk down the halls and retrace the paths between classes that I use to take, hoping that if my footprints line up just perfectly with the ghosts of last year’s I will rekindle the magic, the glory days of freshman year.
As the energy and excitement of the first couple of weeks subsided, I fell into a malaise, both physically and emotionally. My classes, for the most part, were completely discouraging and my schedule, which kept me on campus anywhere from five to nine hours each day, utterly exhausting. Every night I returned to my apartment, far, far away from campus and out of reach of most of my friends, to a tense situation with two roommates I barely knew. I was in and out of doctors offices weekly for a wide array of symptoms, all of which added up to conditions they seemed unable to treat with anything but a pat on the back and a sympathetic look.
And then, my boyfriend and I broke up. I felt it coming, but knowing something’s coming doesn’t lessen the impact. A suicide jumper sees the ground rushing toward him as he falls. Knowing what’s coming doesn’t soften the blow in the least. It still kills.
It’s a rare thing to be fortunate enough to have to go through two breakups at the same time. I put on those songs from last year, go to those same places, wear the same clothes and do the same things, and they’re like hits of methadone. I savor the grief of never being able to go back - to him, to last year.
Part of the reason I’m so attached to last year is because I have such a revisionist mindset towards my history. I feel like everyone does to some extent - you let the things you rather have not happened just slip to the back of your mind, until you can only draw up the haziest versions of them. Or, when remembering a particularly good moment in your life, you sort of skip over those small little flaws in order to preserve this wonderful memory that you can return to and feel completely happy within. People need those perfect moments in their lives, and life offers so few of them that we have to rub the flaws out of the almosts so that we can revel in more perfects.
I, however, seem to take the revision a little bit further than most. Rather than erasing the stray marks in the sketches of my memory, I smooth things out a little too much. If a night had one moment where there was that glimmer of perfection, I can go back and erase everything around it until all I see is that one moment in all its glory. No longer are there the awkward moments, nights spent alone, weeks of depression in my memory of last year. Unless they are the makings of some great, epic moment of change in my life - because, is there not some sort of perfection and beauty in some of the worst moments in life? - the small mistakes are all obliterated so that I can look upon my memory’s painting and only see only the beauty, excitement, passion, and magic in my life.
But as I look closely at my memory masterpiece, I begin to see traces of my small alterations and obliterations. Where there now are shining scenes of good times with the friends I made last year, there once were scenes of loneliness: the nights alone in my dorm room, missing my friends from home; self consciously eating at the dining hall alone, going as late at night as possible so less people would see me. My memories of last year are condensed to just the major scenes - I’ve forgotten all the between times, erased all the mistakes, the disappointments, the insecurities, the rejections, and the just plain dull moments. Why keep them? My memories are my own, what use are the inconsequential upsetting ones to me?
However, the burden of realization that your memories are fraudulent and your happiness delusional itself is horribly depressing - possibly worse than not having any perfect moments, fabricated or not, to revel in at all.
And that’s where I stand right now. Like a child finally realizing that Santa and the Tooth Fairy aren’t real at all, the realization that there is no way of cultivating the magic of last year because last year wasn’t quite magical at all is devastating. I don’t know where to go or what to do from here. How can I get those moments back, the excitement, the happiness, the near perfection?
There is no clear solution, no easy way to get out of this. However, one thing is strikingly clear: I cannot continue living through the past.
The happiness of last year was not calculated or planned. There were no steps I consciously took that led to those sporadic and brief perfect moments. They just happened. So it goes. However, it is clear that they never would have occurred had I not continued to move forward with my life. There is no happiness within a situation where you want to go backwards and not forwards.
And so, I must move on with my life. If I don’t, what will I have to look back on next year? There are still firsts to be had, even in this second year, but I’ll never find them looking in the past.
And yet here I am, listening to Wilco, sitting in my room gazing at my year-old antiques: the flyers, the photos, the scrap of cloth my ex-boyfriend ripped off his shorts and gave to me. The flyers have all been moved to the back of my bedroom door, so I only see them when I choose to. The photos have been intermixed with other, less poignant pictures from high school in order to make them less potent. And the scrap of cloth is hidden behind other items stuck to my bulletin board. I’ve stopped deliberately trying to relive the past, but on occasion, I want those small reminders visible. Addicts often say that every day is a struggle as they fight their addiction, and I understand. In the long run, I know what I want: I want to move on, I want to create more firsts. But the long run seems so far away, it seems so long until I can get back to any semblance of the “glory days” of last year.
I search for “Muzzle of Bees,” press play, and take one more hit, just to take the edge off.
The Second Year
“First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest,” kids used to sing in elementary school. Whenever there was an opportunity to line up for anything - be it as long as a trek to the gym or as short as to the bathrooms around the corner - there would always be a mad rush to be first. Once the dust had settled, however, whoever had won the battle to be head of the line would be subjected to this snotty, whiny rhyme from the person second in line. It could go on for ages, too, the person second putting down the fourth and fifth kids with other badly rhymed verses, all just to make the second person feel better.
Even then we all knew the truth: second is never the best. Firsts are glorious, fresh, exciting, and, most importantly, singular. There can only be one first. The intense rush of feelings can only be had by that one first person or at that one first time. It’s just never quite the same the second time. Once that finish line ribbon’s been broken, those who follow can’t break it again. Once someone’s walked through fresh snow, it’s just not as beautiful. Once you’ve seen Paris, you can’t see it with that same emersion of novelty, of curiosity, of emotion ever again.
Last year was a year of firsts for me. From the moment I stepped out of my parents’ car as they dropped me off at my dorm, taking my first steps of freedom, everything was fresh and new. My bedroom walls stayed empty and undecorated for a couple of months to prolong the feeling of just having moved in. Every night at the dining hall I ate something new (albeit not so flavorful and exciting). I went to parties and for the first time, I was completely anonymous - even I was something fresh and novel everywhere I went. I met new people, explored new places, and had new experiences every single day. And every day I felt that little rush that comes with a first, that spike of adrenaline, that sense of adventure even within the most mundane environments.
For most people, the freshness of freshman year wears off over time, but for me, it just kept on coming. Gradually I made new friends, who brought even more firsts with them: my first trip to Kansas City, my first book signing, my first trip stargazing. As my first fall turned into my first winter - Texas does not have proper seasons, you see - I experienced my first snow, with which came my first proper coat, my first attempt at driving on ice, my first fall down a (short) flight of frozen-over stairs. But most importantly, winter brought my first serious relationship.
Love made everything a first once again, because now I was doing those things for the first time with him. I went to my first concert with him. I went to my first party with him. I had my first trip to Kansas City with him. Even things I’d done most of my life became new and exciting again because now I had someone I loved to do them with. There had always been birthdays and holidays and rainy days and just plain days - but now they were days with him, and that made every day exciting, every day a rush.
I was a full-fledged addict to novelty. And I couldn’t have been happier.
It’s a strange sensation having to leave a place for three months, only to come back again. It’s almost as if you expect time to have stood still while you were away. As I drove into Lawrence a month ago, I was shocked to see that small things had changed. “What happened to the Merc?” I messaged a friend as I drove into town. I walked down Mass Street to find new restaurants and businesses open. My friend Alex had a new haircut, and had moved out of his parents’ basement; Lacy had gotten a nose piercing. Small changes.
The school year has a funny way of reminding you of the passage of time. The first week of school, before classes started, the same exact events occurred on campus that I attended last year as a freshman. For old times sake, I went to a few of them. Surrounded by unsettled and excited freshman, I was reminded of just what it felt like to be on campus for the first time. I fed off their energy - we were at college! College is exciting! Everything is fun and fresh and new again!
And, for a while, things were. There were reunions with the friends and boyfriend I hadn’t seen the entire summer. There were new classes, with new people and new subject matter. There was a new apartment to move into, new walls to decorate and drawers to fill. I covered the walls in memorabilia from last year - flyers and ticket stubs for shows I went to, posters I had in my dorm room, photographs from those great moments of last year - and laid out the items on my desk the exact same way as on my desk the year before. In a whirlwind of newness, small bits of the past were something comfortable to come home to.
But unlike freshman year, the freshness of sophomore years soon wore off.
I have a bad habit of listening to the same music over and over again, for weeks at a time, until I burn out on it and can’t stand to listen to it until months later. When I come back to a song later, the first few seconds of it send a twinge through my body, a mere second of a flashback to the time when I was listening to it constantly. Last winter, I listened to Wilco’s album “A Ghost is Born,” an album my boyfriend introduced me to. Often the flashbacks are of nothing more than inconsequential, everyday moments in my past: I listen to “Handshake Drugs” and I think of pea coats and snow and the feeling of the cold on my face as I walked to class. I listen to “Muzzle of Bees,” and I can instantly sense the greyness of winter surrounding me, as if I’m back taking the long, slow walk from my boyfriend’s dorm to my own. My heart pounds, my body feels heavy, I can’t distinguish between the feeling of the loss of last year, or the loss of our relationship, or if, in this instance, they’re one in the same.
Everywhere I walk, I imagine what I was doing last year at this time. I have a keen memory that inscribes my past in obsessive detail, so that I remember exact dates and locations, massive amounts of minutia about the most mundane daily moments of my life. I celebrate ridiculous anniversaries - one year since my first Lawrence concert, my first college kiss, the first day I had lunch with my friend Cole on Wescoe beach. When, where, what Cole was eating that one afternoon (pizza, breadsticks, and a Blueberry B-Monster Odwalla Fruit Smoothie) - I remember it all. I wear the same outfits to the same events - the red cap on the third day of English, the black dress to the first party of the year Kevin and Bryan hosted. I walk down the halls and retrace the paths between classes that I use to take, hoping that if my footprints line up just perfectly with the ghosts of last year’s I will rekindle the magic, the glory days of freshman year.
As the energy and excitement of the first couple of weeks subsided, I fell into a malaise, both physically and emotionally. My classes, for the most part, were completely discouraging and my schedule, which kept me on campus anywhere from five to nine hours each day, utterly exhausting. Every night I returned to my apartment, far, far away from campus and out of reach of most of my friends, to a tense situation with two roommates I barely knew. I was in and out of doctors offices weekly for a wide array of symptoms, all of which added up to conditions they seemed unable to treat with anything but a pat on the back and a sympathetic look.
And then, my boyfriend and I broke up. I felt it coming, but knowing something’s coming doesn’t lessen the impact. A suicide jumper sees the ground rushing toward him as he falls. Knowing what’s coming doesn’t soften the blow in the least. It still kills.
It’s a rare thing to be fortunate enough to have to go through two breakups at the same time. I put on those songs from last year, go to those same places, wear the same clothes and do the same things, and they’re like hits of methadone. I savor the grief of never being able to go back - to him, to last year.
Part of the reason I’m so attached to last year is because I have such a revisionist mindset towards my history. I feel like everyone does to some extent - you let the things you rather have not happened just slip to the back of your mind, until you can only draw up the haziest versions of them. Or, when remembering a particularly good moment in your life, you sort of skip over those small little flaws in order to preserve this wonderful memory that you can return to and feel completely happy within. People need those perfect moments in their lives, and life offers so few of them that we have to rub the flaws out of the almosts so that we can revel in more perfects.
I, however, seem to take the revision a little bit further than most. Rather than erasing the stray marks in the sketches of my memory, I smooth things out a little too much. If a night had one moment where there was that glimmer of perfection, I can go back and erase everything around it until all I see is that one moment in all its glory. No longer are there the awkward moments, nights spent alone, weeks of depression in my memory of last year. Unless they are the makings of some great, epic moment of change in my life - because, is there not some sort of perfection and beauty in some of the worst moments in life? - the small mistakes are all obliterated so that I can look upon my memory’s painting and only see only the beauty, excitement, passion, and magic in my life.
But as I look closely at my memory masterpiece, I begin to see traces of my small alterations and obliterations. Where there now are shining scenes of good times with the friends I made last year, there once were scenes of loneliness: the nights alone in my dorm room, missing my friends from home; self consciously eating at the dining hall alone, going as late at night as possible so less people would see me. My memories of last year are condensed to just the major scenes - I’ve forgotten all the between times, erased all the mistakes, the disappointments, the insecurities, the rejections, and the just plain dull moments. Why keep them? My memories are my own, what use are the inconsequential upsetting ones to me?
However, the burden of realization that your memories are fraudulent and your happiness delusional itself is horribly depressing - possibly worse than not having any perfect moments, fabricated or not, to revel in at all.
And that’s where I stand right now. Like a child finally realizing that Santa and the Tooth Fairy aren’t real at all, the realization that there is no way of cultivating the magic of last year because last year wasn’t quite magical at all is devastating. I don’t know where to go or what to do from here. How can I get those moments back, the excitement, the happiness, the near perfection?
There is no clear solution, no easy way to get out of this. However, one thing is strikingly clear: I cannot continue living through the past.
The happiness of last year was not calculated or planned. There were no steps I consciously took that led to those sporadic and brief perfect moments. They just happened. So it goes. However, it is clear that they never would have occurred had I not continued to move forward with my life. There is no happiness within a situation where you want to go backwards and not forwards.
And so, I must move on with my life. If I don’t, what will I have to look back on next year? There are still firsts to be had, even in this second year, but I’ll never find them looking in the past.
And yet here I am, listening to Wilco, sitting in my room gazing at my year-old antiques: the flyers, the photos, the scrap of cloth my ex-boyfriend ripped off his shorts and gave to me. The flyers have all been moved to the back of my bedroom door, so I only see them when I choose to. The photos have been intermixed with other, less poignant pictures from high school in order to make them less potent. And the scrap of cloth is hidden behind other items stuck to my bulletin board. I’ve stopped deliberately trying to relive the past, but on occasion, I want those small reminders visible. Addicts often say that every day is a struggle as they fight their addiction, and I understand. In the long run, I know what I want: I want to move on, I want to create more firsts. But the long run seems so far away, it seems so long until I can get back to any semblance of the “glory days” of last year.
I search for “Muzzle of Bees,” press play, and take one more hit, just to take the edge off.