I was sitting here, clicking links and doing random Google image searches, when I became aware of something in my chest. Something funny, not entirely physical, but inside.

That’s when it occurred to me — I was having a feeling.

It was a sad feeling. And I didn’t like that, not at all.

It seemed I was sad because of chemistry. Not my internal chemistry, but chemistry, the pure science course they make you take in undergrad. Which I have never been good at. It’s not one of those topics (you know, like biochemistry or organic chemistry or microbiology or clinical nutrition, apparently) that you can pass by cramming for at the last possible second.

And I’ve been so distracted this term — by travelling, by being sick as a fucking dog, by travelling again, and then continuing to be sick as a fucking dog, and then being injured on top of it — that I haven’t really studied. And I’m scared.

I’m tired, and I’m in pain, I’m hopped up on prescriptions, I’ve been sleeping insane hours, and I’m just scared.

I recently learned this weird habit of talking to my fear. Yeah, it’s kind of a hippy-dippy thing to do, but when you’ve got hippy-dippy emotional problems, you’ll try just about anything.

So, while drifting in and out of sleep this morning, I attempted to talk to my fear of chemistry.

Why is it so scary for me? Haven’t I taken lots harder courses and passed them? Haven’t I done surprisingly well at this whole “science” thing, given that I basically identified as “artsy” from the time I was an itty-bitty kid?

Well, yeah. But that didn’t stop the scared.

So, the scared started talking back to me a little. And it said, “I’m scared of chemistry because, when it’s over, the person I was is gone.”

Now, that streak of “artsy” — it’s a hyper-rational, pragmatic, no-bullshit kind of artsy. Symbolic, psychological woo-woo is not my usual thing. But, like I said, with the emotional problems and all, I’m willing to go with it.

I thought about it. And, weirdly, chemistry seems to represent something for me. It seems, for reasons I don’t understand at all, to mean saying goodbye to myself as I once was.

And I don’t want to. Even though I’m really not that person. Even though I haven’t been for quite a while.

From where I stand now, I can look at that girl — who detested herself so much, who wore her skin like a hair shirt — and see that she was lovely, even in her imperfectness. I can like her, smile at her awkwardness, endear her ignorance, sympathize with her (many, many) sadnesses, admire her ambitions.

And I can know with certainty that, because I never fulfilled those ambitions, because her future never materialized, because I went left when she pointed right, we two are not the same anymore.

And finishing chemistry will be the stamp on the postcard that says, “Wish you were here.”

This post represents one (of what is sure to become many) in which I talk to myself. Feel free to read or to skip. Comments on these posts are closed.