the guide FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2015
B2
the guide
THE HOYA
friday, november 6, 2015
ISABEL BINAMIRA/THE HOYA
Three Kinds of Kisses Emily Stephens SFS ’17
I
t was the kind of kiss where our teeth bumped against each other but I pretended they didn’t. It was the kind of relationship where we danced around his kitchen and it felt like a movie, but only the insipid variety I was too lazy to get up and stop watching. He was the kind of person who asked for an itemized list of why I loved him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t. After all, at the end of the summer I was flying across the country to go to school, and we would — with luck — never see each other again. Did it really matter so much that he started conversations by texting me babe-exclamation-point or that he had shockingly archaic views on reciprocating oral sex? I dated that boy for three months in high school. I left the relationship as apathetic about him as when I had entered it, with a vague skepticism toward the benefit of labeling a relationship in the customary way — that is, to use the terms boyfriend and girlfriend. Never again, I vowed, would I change my relationship status on Facebook. Never again would I be afraid to tell a boy I wasn’t interested. Why couldn’t everyone simply let their feelings fester in a petri dish until they formed an organic, amorphous semblance of a relationship? Why did people rush to stamp themselves with a brand of ownership? Then I met another boy. It was the kind of
kiss I felt in my stomach walking back to my room; it was the kind of relationship where I fell asleep with the phone next to my ear as we spent the summer apart from each other. He was the kind of person who called me “honey.” It was a long, complicated saga of a relationship that eventually failed spectacularly, but only in the mundane fashion of tears and pining and watching the little green circle appear next to his name on Facebook and waiting for a conversation that wouldn’t start. We never “dated” and so I was never broken up with, but perhaps my showerhead, a witness to my despondency, would beg to differ. The hopelessly tangled m a r i o n e t te wires of our no-stringsattached affair seemed to reinforce my crusade against traditional, labeled relationships. If I had a boyfriend I disliked and a lover I truly cared about, what utility did those words have? I practiced saying the words “my boyfriend” in front of a mirror. It was like my tongue was curling around a lemon
the guide EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MALLIKA SEN
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drop, my face puckering away from the sordid reality of the word. We use labels for linguistic convenience. I don’t have to say, “I’m vaguely involved with a guy and here are the exact constraints of our relationship for you to peruse.” I can simply say, “I have a boyfriend.” And yet, we’ve managed to distort the term from an innocent identifier to an engorged, greedy behemoth of a word by continually feeding it connotation after connotation of what a relationship needs to look like. Now, when I have a “boyfriend,” I can easily feel contractually obligated to carefully drop his name in conversations with other men, to love him to the moon and back and post occasional statuses to that effect, to hold hands in public and look respectably abashed about that apparently uncontrollable urge. If you’re not willing to take up that yoke of public spectacle, why bother using the word at all?
Labels are inherently for other people. Attaching a word — “relationship” — to a swell of emotion — “the way I feel when I think about this person” — is redundant inside my own head. They feel self-gratifying and attention-seeking. And yet. I’ve met a third boy. It’s the kind of kiss that invites wandering hands; it’s the kind of relationship in the stage after sending each other emoji hearts, but the stage before diminutives and good-morning texts. He is the kind of boy who can beat me at hangman. Heady snippets of our conversations make my friends squeal as I breathlessly retell them. He is not my boyfriend. I am not his girlfriend. But. The sharp, jagged edge of that looming label is softening around the edges, melting wax dripping and reforming into a seal I’m not afraid of using. Were all my carefully constructed critiques simply the embittered result of two failed relationships, and not as representative of universal truths as I had convinced myself they were? I feel almost as if I’ve failed myself: the moment the right man sauntered into view I leapt from my moral high ground, abandoned my principles and fell tumbling into his arms. In two months he and I might no longer be speaking, and I’ll crawl back into my cave like a recalcitrant, misanthropic crab, shedding labels as I go and convincing myself I’d never voluntarily use one anyway. I don’t know. But maybe, just maybe, my stodgy, cynical heart is weakening just enough to allow these harmless expressions of emotion to worm their way inside.
Dear readers, “Love Locks: The Hoya’s Open Diary” is an issue of creative nonfiction pieces and photography submissions from members of the Georgetown community. In producing this issue, we invited the wider community to submit its stories in written and visual forms. The selected pieces address love in a deeply personal, honest way and explore predicaments — including relationships, breakups, self-acceptance and familial love — that the authors have grappled with, complemented by thematic artwork. We invite you to read all published pieces, and some more, on our new online features platform: www.thehoya.com/love-locks.
friday, november 6, 2015
the guide
THE HOYA
B3
Secrets at 1065 Park Ave. Iman Hariri-Kia COL ’17
“L
ove is fleeting, like a fleet of ships deserted in the desert.” — Jarod Kintz
SUBMISSION BY RACHEL PARK (COL ’18)
“He’s part-time on weekdays, 23 years old, and I think his name is Nate.” My sister’s whisper fell faint as my mouth gaped open while I walked into my apartment building. The man who opened the door for me was not David, the graying, skinny Jew with two kids in college, who berated me about my late nights and consistently inquired about my high school GPA. Nor was it Donald, the hearty, year-round Santa Claus who chuckled nervously each time I asked for my mail and was oddly fond of Katy Perry. The hand that guided me into our familiar foyer belonged to no man, but a boy. He had tiny dimples indented into his cheeks, framing his wide gapped smile. His hair was dark and shaggy, descending upon his erratic blue eyes, screaming, “I’m a genetic anomaly.” He raised his eyebrows, thick, like two dark clouds barely brimming the horizon of his lashes. I immediately raised mine as well, returning the gesture in a manner that I thought would appear flirtatious (upon further examination in our lobby mirrors several seconds later, I realized that I actually resembled a drunk mime, the kind you would find in Central Park and immediately run away from.) “Thanks,” I mumbled seductively. “No problem.” I knew instantly that we had a connection. Although neither of us ever acknowledged it, we entered a whirlwind romance that day, which silently took both of us by storm and shook the very foundation of 1065 Park Avenue. He was totally in love with me. It was fairly obvi-
ous in the way that he’d casually state, “Your dad just got home,” or my favorite, “You received a package from Amazon Prime.” Keeping the passion alive grew more difficult when I left for Georgetown. Each time I returned home for break, I had the taxi drop me off at the Starbucks around the corner, so I could primp before emerging into the building and reuniting with my long-lost love. It was as if I had been off at war, and he’d been patiently waiting for me back at the home front. Whenever I exited or entered the lobby with my family during Christmas or Easter holiday, I made sure to throw in a few curse words. He needed to know I was not a little girl anymore; college had transformed into a woman. One time, I strutted into the lobby loudly rapping the lyrics to a Kanye West song. I could tell he was impressed. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years, I sensed a rupture in our daily lobby rendezvous. I looked forward to coming home each evening from my internship, greeted by Nate’s ill-fitting gray suit and natural musk. Then I noticed that around 5 p.m., he briefly disappeared, and I began to wonder if my mind had invented him purely for my own amusement. I finally found him one day, crouching in the neighboring building’s courtyard, smoking a joint. Our eyes locked and I let out a tiny giggle. It was the first secret we ever shared. Some love is fleeting. Some love is silent. Some love is true, even if its very existence is never declared. I returned from Georgetown in June to learn that Nate had begun working at another building, which offered him a full-time position. I also learned that his name was really Eli. I often think back on our time together fondly. I wonder if he ever does, or did, think of me.
‘Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.’ Taylor Rasmussen COL ’16
I
remember the first time I fell in love. I was fourteen, a brace-faced high school freshman with a lot of enthusiasm and very few social skills. It was in English class that I found myself blindsided, abruptly and utterly, by love. He was perfect. He was smart, charismatic, witty, funny, unabashedly charming, and a good friend. I had no idea whether he was handsome or not. He was a gentleman. He knew how to swordfight and, I assumed, how to dance. I could make my heart skip a beat – literally – by simply saying his name aloud. And what a name it was, too: Mercutio. I should probably clarify here that by “Mercutio,” I am indeed referring to Romeo’s bold and lively comrade from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” who declaims, defames, lives, and dies in the streets of fair Verona. By “Mercutio,” I am indeed referring to a strictly fictional character. But somehow, my teenage emotions inexplicably managed to overlook this little detail. For weeks on end, I found myself captivated by Mercutio. I didn’t simply harbor affection for Mercutio as a concept, or simply appreciate aspects of his personality, or simply relish his verbal wit and commend his bravery. I was genuinely, head-over-heels in love. I imagined myself strolling arm-in-arm with a dashing Mercutio — who began, in my mind, to take on the approximate appearance of John McEnery in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film — on moonlit nights, of stealing kisses, of declaring our feelings for each other both in flowery iambic pentameter and in honest but decidedly 21st-century prose. My feelings were very, very real. Everything, every ounce of love and every romantic sentiment that I held for Mercutio was real. I still believe that, even to this day. Months passed. I remained thoroughly in love with Mercutio for a long while, but eventually, the urgency and intensity of my feelings subsided. By the time spring arrived, I managed to make it through whole days without once thinking of Mercutio. I still read and re-read his scenes in “Romeo and Juliet” with an almost religious regularity, and I memorized his “Queen Mab” speech in a sort of homage to all that I’d once so immediately desired; I remember thinking how awfully fitting it was that I’d fallen in love with a madeup character whose longest speech in the play was all about faerie nonsense, about dreams. Since Mercutio, I’ve made something of
an unfortunate habit of falling in love with fictional people. As the years went by, characters like Sydney Carton, Cyrano de Bergerac, Neil Gaiman’s Marquis de Carabas, “Inkheart’s” Dustfinger, the suave but animated Spike Spiegel — and countless others — all swept me off my feet. I found myself in a strange position. Why, I asked myself, did I continue to fall so frequently and so hard in love with fictional people? Fictional people! It was ridiculous, I knew it was, but the trend persisted nonetheless. Now, don’t get me wrong — I’ve made a few forays into the world of actual, real-life romance, too. But even now, I, a student at a respectable university, a young woman with rights and responsibilities and goals and choices to make, still swoon primarily over people who only exist between excitedly turned pages or on eagerly viewed stages or inside tiny, glowing boxes, made of nothing more than pixels and light. I think about the multitude of real people I know that I am very much not in love with. I think about Mercutio. I think to myself — what makes them different? What does Mercutio, and the figures like him who make my breath catch and my jaw go slack, have that others don’t? I think — I think — I’ve figured it out. Mercutio is unafraid. Mercutio is himself. Mercutio is unafraid to be himself. More than that, Mercutio cares. And Mercutio is happy to show the whole world that he cares. He cares about Romeo, he cares about Queen Mab, he cares about dreams, he cares about his honor, he cares about being clever — and, I would argue, for all his railing against it, he cares about love. It’s easy to fall in love with a man who makes his heart so visible. Mercutio’s first line in “Romeo and Juliet” is simple, unpretentious, even forgettable. Romeo complains of a heavy heart, and Mercutio replies, his line fitting perfectly into Shakespeare’s signature 10-syllable meter, “Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.” People don’t talk like that anymore. True, much of that comes down to time period and dramatic necessity, but try speaking that sentence out loud — actually try it. Can you speak those words without a certain softness coming over your face, without the faintest hint of a smile crossing your lips? I can’t. Maybe it’s just me — maybe it’s just Mercutio — but there’s something so simple, so honest, so perfect and so right about Mercutio’s first line. That this is spoken by the same man who later rages, “A plague o’ both your
houses!” as he draws his final breaths does not, not even remotely, bother me. It shows Mercutio to be a man of contrasts, and doubly proves him to be a man unafraid to bare his whole soul. Where does this leave me? At this rate, it seems pretty likely that I’ll keep pining away for Mercutio after Mercutio, and that actual romance in the real world is about as far out of my grasp as a happy ending was for Juliet
and Romeo. Even so. I suppose I’d like to end on a note of hope. I hope that, maybe, my story of unrequited love for Mercutio might open a real heart or two. True, Mercutio’s fearlessness got him into trouble sometimes, but I think everyone, every single person, can learn from him. Learn to be unafraid. Learn to be yourself. Learn to be unafraid to be yourself. And maybe then, we can all learn to love.
NAAZ MODAN/THE HOYA
B4
THE HOYA
the guide
Friday, NOVEMBER 6, 2015
SUBMISSIONS BY JOHN CURRAN (COL ’19)
“I can feel the sand and smell the salty sea breeze. I see my family laughing together, sharing meals, and simply being together all the time at the beach. These pictures make me cry. How lucky am I to love a place that evokes that feeling in me? I look at the pictures content that I was able to capture the beach, something I truly love, in just a few photographs.”
For Joseph Emmanuel Elone COL ’17
I
originally wanted to say that my tale of love began in August of 2013, just three weeks before I arrived, unpacked, got my room key, and met my floormates at Georgetown. However, it would be wrong to start my narrative at that point, because all that transpired a few weeks prior to my NSO experience was actually the result of something much larger than anybody could imagine. This story actually began on July 22, 1996, the day my brother Joseph Elone was born. Well, that isn’t exactly true either. We all know that the first few years of our lives only exist as memories looked at through an opaque window; sometimes we can see small glimmers of particular, disconnected events, while a majority of our earlier years fade out with the grace of a falling leaf that blows just beyond our grasp. We can see its general form, and maybe even spot what type of leaf it is for a split second, but it falls and disappears before we ever have a chance to examine it, explore its veins, petiole, or tips. Therefore, even though my story begins with Joe’s birth, it’s best to move forward in time to my middle school years, when I was in eighth grade and my brother in seventh.
It was a sunny, upstate New York spring day and my brother and I walked back home, neither of us speaking. I was a timid, skinny child, making me a perfect target for the traumatic abuses of uncontrollable middle school children. That day I had been called everything from “f-g” to “n----r,” and I left school dazed and unsure of my race, sexuality, and sense of self. My brother was different; he was big-boned, so nobody ever wanted to fight him, but they would still call him “fat ass” and make other references to his weight, which put him in an equally bad mood. That night we did our homework and ate dinner silently with our parents. Afterward, we went to our room and both sat down on our beds, reimagining the horrors of being made fun of for things that we had no control over. The tears began to flow from both our eyes, and we saw for the first time that day how depressed the other was feeling. No words were needed; we got out of bed and gripped each other in a tight bear hug, forgetting the world and its miseries while helping each other pick up the pieces inside of us that had been broken. We decided to play each other in “Call of Duty” and “Gears of War” on our Xbox to make us feel better, but we both seemed to know that it was the hug that truly began the healing that both of
us so dearly needed. For the rest of middle school and most of high school, we pushed and motivated each other to improve ourselves, forming a brotherly bond that no other amount of love could transcend. Joe picked up weightlifting, striving to sculpt his body like an Olympic strongman. I chose to run track and field while also doing a bit of weightlifting of my own to add muscle to my frame. Once my brother began playing guitar, aspiring to start his own rock band, I too decided to pick it up, envious of Joe’s growing talent. I played folk music, and sometimes we both would test each other by doing improvisational sessions in our room. During this point in our lives, we would both help one another when needed, increasing our sense of self-esteem while becoming the closest friends that either of us ever had. One day, in late June of 2013, only a couple of months before I left for college, my brother was sitting on the front steps, looking out at the street and listening to music. I saw him and sat next to him, telling him how happy I was that the school year was over. He agreed, and we talked for some length about our professors, classmates, and friends. In the midst of our conversation, however, my brother took off his headphones, placed a hand on my shoulder, and looked directly
into my face. He said two sentences, “I’m proud of you, bro. Thanks for being the best brother ever,” but at that moment, for a split second, I never felt more proud and honored. It was a feeling that most only have once in their lifetimes, yet makes their entire life worth living. Two months later, on my mother’s birthday, my brother collapsed in front of those same steps, and died later that night from an infection. I guess one can argue that this is more a tale of loss than of love, but I disagree. My brother was the closest person in my life, and even in death he continues to stand by me. And so, every time I see my brother in my dreams, hear a song that we used to play on the guitar together, or hear young children talking about the new “Call of Duty” game, I am thankful for the life that I have been given, thankful to have had Joe in my life if only for a short time, and thankful that I did not fail him as a brother. Joe, through his life, showed me that we are our memories, leaves falling through space to whatever is at the bottom, good or bad. But there’s no need to fret, for so long as we have another leaf near us that gives us joy, if only for a second, then there is no need to worry about hitting the ground, since that is where we will be with our loved ones, and I with Joe, for eternity.
the guide
friday, november 6, 2015
THE HOYA
B5
SUBMISSION BY RACHEL SKAAR (COL ’18)
The Chaos of Being Alone Bethan Saunders SFS ’17
“I
cancelled my flight.”
I froze. “You’re not coming?” “No.” “Why?” “We can’t do this anymore.” And with five words, my safety net disappeared. My comfort evaporated. Like a feeling similar to the biggest drop on a rollercoaster, my stomach flipped upside down as I was plunged into chaos. The chaos of being alone. Who am I without him? What do I do now? I’ve never really been alone. Suspended in a freefall, toward who knows what. I am still figuring out that question. Two years passed by in a blink of an eye. Daily phone calls and emails, visits traversing the country, summer road trips, concerts, baseball games, relaxing days at home, and our constant adventures have shaped the last two years of my life. We were best friends, partners in crime, figuring out life together — one day at a time. We grew together and supported each other through all the obstacles that college threw
our way. It feels like we were only just having the conversation about “doing long distance” when I left for school two years ago. Was it really a year ago that I went to visit him for the last time? Although people assume long distance can never work, it wasn’t the distance that broke us. It was the future that we envisioned for ourselves that tore us apart. Losing my best friend was a disastrous paradox. I felt hopeful, but desolate. I felt empowered, but defeated. I was happy, but terribly sad. I was excited, but terrified. I felt convicted, but unsure. With an iron grip, chaos threw me back and forth. Who am I without him? My answer depends on the day. Still moving through the chaos, I find myself oscillating between two extremes. I feel alone or I feel free. But despite the chaos that surrounds me, I have a greater hope, a greater goal. Gone are the confinements of a white picket fence future, the very future that tore us apart. No longer am I married to a set path. Graduate, move
back home, marry, find a comfortable “9-to-5” job, have kids, quit job, raise kids, retire. While there is nothing wrong with that path (maybe it will be mine one day), my future is now wide open. I don’t owe anyone any part of me or my future, whatsoever. No one can hold me back from my next steps — studying abroad, moving to New York City, and beyond. How liberating is the chaos of being alone. I prayed and I asked for understanding. Did I do the right thing? Did I cross the right bridge? Or did I burn the wrong one? I still don’t know the answer. And even if I did, does it matter? The decision was made a long time ago, I was pushed (or did I leap?) into the chaos of being alone. Like the empires of the past, the civilizations long gone, all goes to chaos, eventually. Wishing I could turn him back into a stranger will never shelter me from the winds that push me back and forth. But in the chaos, I found relief. Eventually, I found light. I found myself running through my storm, dancing in the tumul-
tuous winds. Wondering what would come next; when would lightning strike again and shake up my world? I haven’t stopped moving, I haven’t stopped dancing. But it may not be just because of my resolve or my persistence. I’m afraid. I’m terrified that if I stop moving, I’ll feel the full brunt of the storm. At least when I am moving, I control my interaction with the storm. I am scared that if I stand still, I’ll see the storm for what it really is. I’ll feel the loss at its most powerful. Growth is painful, change is painful. But in the bedlam of the in-between, I realized that nothing is as painful as being stuck somewhere I don’t belong. Committed to something that wasn’t right for me. For so long, I thought I had found my future. We thought we had it figured out, that we would make it through. But God/fate/higher powers have a funny way of throwing a wrench in those seemingly “set” plans, and pushing me back on the road I am meant to walk — alone, at least for now. I still hold onto some part of our friendship. I still remember the good and the bad days, and I won’t forget our experience any time soon. But in all the pain and confusion, all the highs and lows of loss; the chaos of being alone has truly set me free.
October Boyfriends Mackenzie Krebs COL ’16
F
reshman year, he was a tall brunette senior who served at Tombs. He drank more than anyone I’d ever met and happened to live in my exact room when he was a freshman. Things ended shortly after he asked me about my first hook-up at Georgetown. Sophomore year, he was a tall brunette senior who served at Tombs. We had the same favorite book — he had a first edition of it at his house — and disagreed over the importance of using someone’s preferred gender pronouns. I planned on seeing him until he left for Ireland to attend grad school; he planned on terminating our fling before it got too serious. Every autumn, I look forward to finding my October Boyfriend. We meet through a friendof-a-friend at a party with no more than 25 people, even though more than 40 had promised to come. At a respectable five beers deep a piece, we’re able to feign interest in one an-
other’s intellectual capacities long enough to find ourselves removed from the rest of the group. We go back to his place. I marvel at the luxury of his full-sized bed; he surprises me with a text the next day. We spend the next three weekends together. October witnesses summer ease into winter; the sunlight on a pleasant day is crisp, tired, apathetic. My October Boyfriend talks more and more about his post-grad plans while I flounder beneath the cumulative weight of a statistics midterm and four-page Problem of God essay. I stress when he doesn’t text me; I stress even more when he does. We consciously avoid discussing our relationship status, because that’s how real adults date: exclusivity is implicit until one partner accidentally introduces the other as “boyfriend” to an acquaintance. Tragically, inevitably, we stop seeing each other. I envy his 21 years for the access that they grant to Town Danceboutique and other havens of homosexual debauchery. He has plenty of fish; I’ve got the kid I met once at
Leo’s and two matches on Tinder. I don’t hear from him, never see him around campus. Leaves have browned and fallen, midterms are over, I can see my breath at night. It’s November 1. October is my favorite time of the year to fall in love — because it’s the only time when I can. January is a month-long attempt at selfimprovement, February is spent lamenting my loneliness, March and April are too unpredictable, May through September is unbearably hot, and November and December are deceptively cold. October, though — October is finite. As the Earth tilts on its axis further away from the Sun, my physiology begins to scream at me: find a partner now, lest you be doomed to celibacy until the frost melts. I am insatiably attracted to relationships that come with an expiration date, thus explaining my mutual attraction to October and, evidently, the senior servers at Tombs. Perhaps my sentiments are explained by a heightened sense of romanticism developed
during childhood viewings of “50 First Dates”. If Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore’s love can persevere by way of VHS tape, I can make things work with a graduating senior. Perhaps, however, they go much deeper than that: my infatuations with doomed love could be rooted in a subconscious effort to protect myself from experiencing true heartbreak. I was abroad my junior year, and therefore did not have the pleasure of claiming an October Boyfriend. Now, as October of 2015 draws to a close, I am vaguely saddened by the slow realization that I won’t be granted an October Boyfriend for my senior year either. Fortunately, I have hope. This could be a sign of emotional maturity, of having grown beyond the need for an unremarkable fling made passionate by its impossibility. At the wise age of 21, I’m finally able to move beyond a compulsive need for romance as determined by the calendar year. October’s end no longer marks the termination of a shallow love affair; it introduces the potential for legitimate intimacy.
B6
the guide
THE HOYA
Friday, NOVEMBER 6, 2015
ROBERT CORTES FOR THE HOYA
Bravery, Passed Down Michael Neary COL ’18
W
hen I was six, my grandfather sometimes watched me over at my house. One time, I went downstairs to play. The first time I heard him walking down the stairs, I thought I could hide from him for fun without him knowing, so I scrambled to the corner of the room and hid behind the drawer. After he left, I emerged from my spot. The second time, I hid again. After the third time, I wondered if he’d ever find me. The fourth time, two policeman walked into the room with my grandfather. I realized immediately that he thought I’d gone missing. I jumped out and ran upstairs, guilty beyond belief that my grandfather had become so worried he felt he should call the police. I lay face down on my bed as the policeman tried to explain that everything was alright. “Did you make this?” he asked while looking at my Lego structure. “What’s it supposed to be? It looks really cool.” After I didn’t respond, he walked next to my bed and knelt down. “I know you’re upset,” he said. “But your grandfather loves you very much. He’s not mad at you. He’s just happy and relieved that you’re okay.” *** Before I was born and my mother was still in high school, my grandfather was an alcoholic. He never hit any of his children or my grandmother, but he sometimes became
detached. After dinner, he would sit at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, often not saying a word. One night, my Uncle Dave was arrested for underage drinking. When he was brought back home, my mother overheard the heated conversation he had with my grandfather. The shouting intensified until my uncle lowered his voice and said to my grandfather, “You have no right to tell me not to drink.” After that night, my grandfather never drank again. He remained sober for the next thirty years of his life. He cared so much for his family that he stopped immediately. My mother told me that he did the same for smoking. Once his first child was on the way, he quit. *** While my mother was growing up, my grandfather had a vegetable garden in his backyard. From what my relatives have told me, it was extraordinary. He grew pumpkin, squash, you name it. He took care of it each day and guided it into a flourishing patch of land. At one point, he eventually had to stop tending to the garden. The passage of time was starting to affect his physical abilities, and he could no longer adequately take care of it. Yet parts of the fence remained until I was ten, and I had a glimpse from the remnants of how extensive and remarkable the garden must have been. One time, he told me and my family at dinner that to take care of the slugs, he’d put a
container of beer in the garden. The slugs, attracted to the liquid, would climb into the trap and not be able to climb back out, so they’d drown in the beer. My grandfather, grinning slightly, explained, “At least they’d die drunk.” *** Throughout his life, my grandfather dealt with depression. I don’t remember noticing while I was younger, which is as depression tends to normally work. It can feel as though you’re drowning while to an onlooker everything seems alright. Yet going through my memories, I can remember bits and splintered moments of where the depression manifested. I think now that I’m older, I’m more aware of how the emotions can take control of people and cause them to shut down, even if they don’t explicitly express it. I’ve dealt with depression since middle school, and it’s never really gone away. For me, depression can be debilitating. Over the years, I’ve tried to learn how to cope with the feelings of despair, even when it feels like I’m being eaten alive from the inside. Because depression can make you think you’re worthless and that your existence is incompatible with life itself. It leads to a cascade of countless thoughts until you sometimes find yourself seriously contemplating whether you even want to keep living. Through my struggles with depression, I’ve over time been able to more deeply ap-
preciate how much my grandfather loved his entire family. Despite his depression, he found meaning through every one of us. *** Evidently, I cannot understand his pain to its fullest extent, for adversity is a very personal experience. Yet I can work with what I know. I know my grandfather as the bearded man who used to pick me up and swing me around when I was still young and he was still able. I remember him as the man who loved history and even taught it as a high school teacher. I can picture his smile, which was as modest and warm as he was. I remember him too as a man who, when looking back, dealt with emotional pain. Yet my grandfather is one of the bravest and strongest people I know. I look up to him with the deepest sense of admiration, and I see him as a role model from a very personal perspective. Even though he dealt with depression, he found ways to experience meaning and never failed to show his love for me and for others. I’ve discovered that even if I can’t find a stable meaning for myself, I can try to help others on their journey. My grandfather loved others and gave them a sense of meaning even through his sadness, and he knew not just how to show love but also how to receive it. My hope, for as long as I live, is to do the same.
Saved to Drafts: A Letter to My Mother Harshita Gaba COL ’18
H
i Mom,
I’ve always believed that what distinguishes you from my friends is that you love me unconditionally. You always knew the details I was too embarrassed to admit, like when I got my eyebrows waxed in sixth grade or when I came sobbing to your bedroom that one evening after seeing the fresh spots of red in my underwear for the first time. As I’ve gotten older and the physical distance between us has grown, I’ve come to realize how much I actually enjoy talking to you. Whether we’re discussing books or politics or little idiosyncrasies of human nature, your anecdotes are so different from my own, yet the underlying values from which your anecdotes develop are mine exactly. We approach our conversations from the same level, and therefore waste no time or effort catching each other up. I promise the nature of our conversations is no trivial experience. Even when we disagree, our arguments have a way of accentuating each other like puzzle pieces so that the conversation is richer as a result. So I’m left wondering if there is anything
left for me to tell you, someone who has already, supposedly, heard it all. As of right now, there is nothing I’d like to tell you. I’m content with our relationship, and I can only assume that you are too. There are, however, stories you haven’t heard and will not hear for many years, if at all. You don’t know where I was those summer nights when you thought I went to the football game or to Allison’s house. You don’t know that I, at least momentarily, fell in love with someone. And you really don’t know that we had sex when I was fifteen. It hurt. It wasn’t romantic. It was quick and exceptionally experimental, in the back of his Subaru parked in a cornfield, and it didn’t exceed any of my expectations … other than rendering me unable to walk or urinate without pain for a few days afterwards. Looking back, I think that maybe you did know, or at least had an idea as to what was going on. The atmosphere changed when I came back after those summer nights in the cornfield, with me sitting on my bed and you in the study room across the black hallway, working at your computer that emitted the only pixelated light into the darkness. How could you be immune to the tension in that silence? But then again, perhaps that tension
was only my suppressed guilt. It left a tight, hollow place in my gut that could not be filled until I went to sleep and woke up with the rays of a new sun replacing the shadows that had kept me awake a few hours prior. You know I’ve always liked mornings. Then there was that one uncomfortable night you found a list of detailed, handwritten sex tips in my room. Kiara was the friend who had done everything four years before everyone else, and she had spent the previous night passing down some of this wisdom to me, and I took notes. My approach to solving problems, from equations in physics class to cleaning my room, has always been very organized and sequential. So it should be no surprise that I approached sex with the same mentality. That night, the list was folded twice between your fingers. You called me in to that study room. You tried confronting me, but those little tears in your eyes got in the way of your words. But I promise you that those little tears told me what words never could have. Maybe you were in denial; maybe you wanted to evade the conversation as much as I did; but it was easy to blow off the list as Kiara’s. The topic was never brought up again, so thank you for that. Perhaps the guilt has never left me; perhaps distance sim-
ply makes it bearable and it’s waiting for me in the shadows of my bedroom, across the hall from the study room where you’re likely still sitting, staring into the pixelated light of your computer. For now, there is nothing I’d like to tell you. I’m keeping these and similar details to myself because I’d never risk repeating the mortification of that night. Your ignorance is bliss for both of us. But it’s a precarious bliss, one that demands I keep a significant part of my life from you. I’m unsure what you’re afraid of, besides the discomfort. Even the casual mention of an argument I’ve had with a friend, let alone a lover, is enough to worry you excessively. I’m young, malleable; let me hurt a bit. And besides, I’ve learned that any meaningful investment of the heart requires some emotional vulnerability, and that experiencing the good demands embracing the bad too. Love isn’t always pretty enough for a filter and a cute caption; stop convincing yourself that it’ll always be peachy for me. For now, I don’t feel guilty for lying to you. For now, I don’t even feel guilty for not feeling guilty. Love, Harshi
NAAZ MODAN/THE HOYA
the guide
friday, november 6, 2015
THE HOYA
B7
SUBMISSION BY RACHEL SKAAR (COL ’18)
Healing in Seasons Jenny Chen SFS ’16
I
will not be afraid. Afraid of putting pencil to paper, of etching memories into granite, of accepting the reflection staring anywhere but directly into the vast depths of the mirror. But what is life, individuality, and love without the deepest, most painful moments of our lives? The year is 2007. As a 13-year-old girl, life is quite ordinary. I strive to maintain high grades and keep up with the latest gossip. I strive to look like all the other girls. In school, I gaze enviously at the thinner girls, wishing to look like them. My family has membership to a local gym. As such, I take to the machines daily and run, not caring that my muscles are screaming and I want to throw up. The gears whine continuously, my face hot and sticky and my breath coming in short, hard gasps but I run. Left, right, left, right; nothing else matters, and it all becomes a blur... Fall: In the parking garage, my mom turns slowly around to face me in the backseat, her eyes urgently searching my own. Her pupils are dilated, her mouth turned downwards. I turn away quickly, unable to meet those agonized eyes, unwilling to be caught by the glaring searchlights cutting through the fog. Voices in my mind rise louder than
ever, replaying a conversation held moments ago: “She needs help! She’s only 88 pounds!” Eighty-eight pounds. Eighty-eight pounds. When my mom parks the car, I run inside, slam the door to my bedroom, and let my raw emotions flow. Taking out my diary I flip to an empty page. Through bleary eyes I copy, “88 pounds.” I lift my hand from the paper. A small scribble barely a quarter-centimeter high remains as evidence. Ten seconds later, deep, furious pen marks have scratched out the lightly printed words. They no longer exist. A few days or maybe weeks later: I look down into my outstretched palm. A small rectangle sits there. Small, circular objects encased in plastic lie in neat rows of four by seven, one for each day of the month for as long as necessary. Take one nightly, my
mom tells me. She gives one to me and I put it slowly in my mouth. When she leaves, however, I spit it out, wrap it neatly in a piece of paper towel, and discard it. Only sick people need pills, I tell myself. Winter: I remember looking at photographs of myself standing on my snowstrewn street. My cheeks are flushed with the cold and I am bundled in a brown winter jacket many sizes too large. My face has a haunted look about it. My eyes are gazing straight ahead but what do they see? The memory seems distant. My hands shake with the difficulty of holding onto a window into the past while memories that have accumulated over the span of four months crash down upon me. “I am sick. Anorexia has eaten my life and my soul. But I cannot be defined by anorexia,” I declare. No one else is in the room. But I am
the only person meant to be listening. Spring: I have taken my medicine daily for the past few months. Some days I skip but the next day, I always remember to reach into the medicine cabinet, take a pill, and dry-swallow it. I have stopped exercising as excessively as before and my eating habits have improved. I pay less attention to appearances. Most of all, I have begun to embrace my family and accept my appearance and individuality as they are. I don’t remember when I got better. What I do remember is that day by day, week by week, the numbers on the scale slowly crept up; I laughed more; I talked more; life meant something and I felt stronger than I have ever been. Life is forever a rollercoaster of a ride. However, truth and mindfulness always remain there to stretch out caressing hands. The decision was so clear and is so now. And thus, I let go of illusory satisfaction and reach confidently toward arduous healing and self-love. I can’t help but feel vulnerable for sharing what makes me who I am. But then, I wonder, what more can I possibly fear after I have divulged one of the best-kept secrets of my life to one of my biggest critics, myself, to then be loved unconditionally and embraced with open arms? Nothing.
Thanksgiving Kate Randazzo SFS ’17
I
n the video, you watch yourself dance. Your eyes are fixated on the screen as you whirl your arms and stomp your feet, transfixed by the flurry of motion on the TV, your own boundless joy mirrored back at you. I play the video over and over, freezing each frame the way you used to start and stop Curious George on your iPad. Pause. You make a silly face at the screen, tongue out, eyes screwed up, fingers wiggling on your head. Play. “Michael, lift up your hand,” our cousin urges behind the camera, “I want to show you something!” Mom gently raises your hand, and you gasp in delight as bright red hearts spill from your upturned palm. Pause. My index finger dips low enough to trace the familiar lines of your face: your thin, graceful eyebrows, your round nose, the swell of your lower lip. I draw back an inch from the computer screen. I don’t want to feel the hard, flat surface against my skin, don’t want to admit that this person who looks and laughs and moves like you is nothing more than pixels flashing on a screen. Play. As you twist your shoulders to Pharrell’s “Happy,” I drift into the background, mumbling that this song is so overplayed. But a moment later my head is bobbing, and now we’re all dancing together, you, me, and Mom mirroring each other’s moves like we’re competing for the title of dorkiest family. You grab my hand and spin me so hard I go pitching backwards onto the couch, whooping with laughter. When the song ends, I wander back out of view, headed for the stairs. “Kate!” you holler. “Come dance! Dance with me!” I can’t hear you. I’m already gone. Pause. There’s no basement anymore, no 16-year-old boy with thin shoulders and a crooked grin. Just a wet blur of color and the sound of something in my throat breaking. *** Our cousin spent most of that Thanksgiving behind his camera, following the grownups around. You were an endless source of inspiration. “Michael, do silly face! Here, Michael, look over here!” “Relax, Colin,” I said. We sat snuggled up on the couch, one of my arms wrapped around your shoulders. “He’s trying to read.”
Your love for reading had taken off in the past months. When I think of last autumn, I think of words, spinning down out of your mouth like falling leaves. T-R-E-E, that spells tree, you said as we wandered the path behind our house, and your finger swept the air as if you could see the letters suspended before you. S-K-Y, that spells sky. Now you leaned over the picture book open in your lap, your forehead scrunched up in concentration as you sounded out each word. All around us, turkey sizzled, the dog barked, Colin chased his screeching sister across the room, but you kept turning the pages, swept up in the tale of pilgrims and Wampanoag sitting down together for the first Thanksgiving. You loved stories in the same simple, whole-hearted way you loved your family, and your friends, and the fluffy-coated dog next door, and the pinecones we found on our walks. Some people called it obsession, but I knew your love for what it was — boundless, swelling wider and deeper each time you shared it. That was always the difference between us. Loving exhausted me. I only had so much to give, so I saved it all for you. That night, over turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, you sang every verse of “Let It Go,” to enthusiastic applause. Then you wolfed down all the food on your plate, burped, and asked shamelessly for seconds. The memory is a blur of heat and laughter, but when I close my eyes I can still see you across the table, a pile of crumbs in your laps, sighing as you leaned back in your chair. Full and sleepy, surrounded by love on all sides. Safe. When I left for school that Sunday, you hugged me tight enough to creak my ribs, and your hair smelled like strawberry shampoo. The next time I saw you there was a white sheet covering your body and I had died a thousand times in half an hour.
lean your head back in the water, and the look on your face is perfect contentment – a moment without past or future – the sum of every conversation we have never needed to have. “Ah,” you sigh. “This life.” If Heaven changes a single thing about you, I’m turning around and leaving. *** Now it’s fall again, the cusp of another Thanksgiving, but I have trouble finding things to be thankful for. Your bed is still
too empty, your razor rusting in the shower too painful to touch. I am not yet ready to thank fate for letting me know and love you, rather than curse it for taking you away. But today, sweeping my feet through piles of red and golden leaves, breathing dust and woodsmoke into my lungs, I saw the world for a moment as you saw it — strange, delightful, and in its own mundane way, miraculous. I can hate that world for killing you, or I can love it, because you did. It’s a hard choice. But I know what you would have wanted.
*** You’ll see him again, they tell me, the people who come with tears in their eyes, grasping my shoulders and rocking me and murmuring in my ears. And when you do, think of the conversations you’ll be able to have, finally. He understands everything now. No disabilities. He’s perfect, perfect, just the way he was meant to be. I nod. I force a smile. But in my mind you are sprawled back on the sand, arms crossed behind your head, as the tide comes surging up around you in a hiss of salt and foam. You
NAAZ MODAN/THE HOYA
B8
THE HOYA
the guide
Friday, NOVEMBER 6, 2015
On Learning to Love A Drug Addict Francesca SMith*
W
JINWOO CHONG/THE HOYA
e often label ourselves in regards to those around us, finding our identity in the relationships to those we know how to define and how to love. I am a proud daughter, sister, and friend and know how to operate within each of these relationships, know how to express my love differently for each person involved. Four years ago, I encountered a new title, or rather an amendment to an old one: sister of a drug addict. There are many things the books and doctors don’t tell you when one of your loved ones suffers from addiction, and even more that would never occur to you to think about. By far the most shocking part of my brother’s addiction was realizing I had to re-learn how to love him, or rather, reconcile the heroin addict in him with the boy I’d grown up idolizing, and love him just the same. There is no handbook that comes with addiction. No manual born by the addict as they admit their problem two weeks before the start of your freshman year. The only way through it is with hearts and eyes wide open. Finding out your brother is an addict feels like warm rain. It is disorienting, uncomfortable, sticky, and most importantly impossible to protect against. Nothing practical, no raincoat or umbrella, will make it any less painfully and completely drenching. Living each day with the knowledge that your beloved big brother is an addict on the other hand is like those dreams where you’re in a perpetual backwards freefall, out of control and unsure when you will hit the ground. We used to spell love in my family T-R-U-S-T. We spelled it U-N-A-W-A-R-E. We gave it out freely because it felt infinite, easy, and flowing. We have given unconditional a whole new meaning. We have tested the bounds of glib childhood proclamations of love that stretches to the moon and back. I’m proud to say we can stand by our naive promises. That our familial bond and love is strong enough to withstand the corrosion of a disease that knows no limits of destruction. But we spell our love differently now, we spell it with pain, with drug tests, with fear and trepidation. Our love is thick now, futilely coating us all in something that will not protect us, but is the only weapon we have left. Learning to love an addict means unlearning everything you knew to be true about love. It means letting go of notions that black and white exist. It means accepting that sometimes re-
ally good people do terrible things. That love and hate are not opposites, do not cancel each other out, but in fact can live side by side in your feeling towards a single person. It means loving them when they cannot love themselves, reminding them they are worthy of love, learning that nothing you can say, nothing you can do, will make them hate themselves more than they already do. It also means accepting that nothing you can say or do will save them or make them change, that it is a decision only they have control of. Learning to love an addict means not being afraid to speak your mind out of fear you will cause them to spiral out of control. Means loving without regard for yourself. Loving incautiously and wholly, opening yourself up to immense hurt. Learning to love an addict means learning to live with pain and sorrow and sadness and most importantly figuring out how to not let these bog you down and eat away at you. Loving a drug addict means forgiving them each time they slip up and believing in them wholeheartedly each time they start anew. One hour, one day, one month at a time. A few days before my 21st birthday my brother had a colossal relapse. The news left me feeling both anger and sorrow for him, fear about the uncertainty of the situation, and a deep deep pain for my mom and dad — for the way their faces distorted in a grief and helplessness I imagine only parents can understand. Fuelled by a few drinks too many and triggered by the very typical fall through of late-night plans, I sat on a sidewalk in Florence sobbing. I had wanted so badly to pull off a flawless 21st celebration in a futile attempt to prove that my brother could not ruin my birthday, that his disease’s dirty fingers could not touch all aspects of my life. But that is a ridiculous notion. Addiction is an all-encompassing monster. To live with the uncertainty and pain it brings is only bearable through an open and honest approach to your feelings. You cannot love your way out of addiction, but you sure as hell cannot hate your way out of it. The night of my 21st birthday I was not crying over failed plans or my brother’s relapse, but rather I was mourning my perceived loss of the boy I thought I had known. Learning to love a drug addict means realizing that just because your idols fall, does not mean you cannot catch them. * The author’s name has been changed to preserve her family’s privacy.
The Myth I Believe In Molly Cooke COL ’19
W
hen people find out you’ve broken up with someone, responses tend to be reductive. It’s the natural reaction to belittle everything from healing: “It just takes time;” to the ex: “He’s just an asshole;” to the relationship itself: “It just wasn’t meant to be.” Even when we try to defend lost love, saying, “It means something,” and “It was more than just…” it’s easier to give in. Maybe it did mean something before, but it certainly doesn’t anymore. After all, love that’s lost but still means something is just a broken heart, right? I was the authority on love in high school. Always in a relationship (or at least on the hunt for one), my friends came to me for advice. I had standards. I knew how to flirt and how to dress for a first date. At any given time, my boyfriend and I were the picture in the dictionary next to the word “love.” And when we broke up? Well, after just enough crying, I knew the cure was more picture-perfect love. Watch enough romantic movies and listen to the right songs until they become you. Just as I couldn’t help falling in love, I couldn’t help falling into the trap of reduction. I knew what love was, though my definition had a tendency to change. It became disillusioned, and I didn’t have a definition anymore. I won’t deny that our love is romantic. We met on a double date during our first “real” relationships, but stayed friends after respective breakups. Undeniably attractive and just the right amount of older than me, he quietly saw me through my series of relationships. Every time I dated someone new, he would say, “He’s not right for you,” and every time I would ignore him. Every time I broke up with them, I would hear his slightly accented voice echoing, “I told you so.” One day I asked him, if he was such an expert, what did he think of the guy I was hanging out with at that very moment. “Bad idea,” he said, and kissed me. “The worst,” I replied. We’ve never dated, but he’s broken my heart multiple times and though he is hard-pressed to show it, I’m sure I’ve broken his. He told me to get out of his life two weeks after he first kissed me. He wanted to date this girl, and I couldn’t get in the way. Less than a month later, I heard from him again. His relationship was coming along smoothly, but he’d worn a sweatshirt I’d borrowed and it still smelled like me. We go back and forth being friends until our chemistry heats up enough that he feels guilty
about his girlfriend and excommunicates me from his life for the next few weeks. One night, about a month after he’d picked me up from my most recent breakup, he told me he loved me. Three days later, I met up with my ex for lunch, and it drove us apart again. Over the summer, we had another falling out. Only this time, he made me believe it was goodbye forever, and I suppose that was when my heart broke irreparably. I felt I let him down and let him go, but he hasn’t been off my mind for the last three months. I would dial his phone number, but never call. I have a stack of letters I’ve never mailed. I’ve hated myself for deleting his pictures, for trying to reduce what I have with him down to something I can understand.
He came back into my life a few weeks ago, and I still don’t understand. I know he still has a girlfriend. I know that when he misses me, he visits the table at a diner where I once sat with him. I know that he wears the same sweatshirt I once borrowed to remember me. I know that I don’t understand what is between us, and I know that I wish I did. When I do try to understand, I arrive at this conclusion: love is a myth. Myths may not make factual sense, and you may not believe in them, but whether you understand them or not, myths have power. The myth of love is prevalent in society, and it’s what drives me to dial the number I won’t call and write the letters I won’t send. It’s what drives him to wear that specific sweatshirt and return to that spe-
cific table at that specific diner. The myth of love draws us back together time and again, our hearts still aching, no matter how many movies we watch or songs we listen to. I don’t know if I’ll ever be in a relationship with him, I don’t know why he chooses to stay with his girlfriend, and I don’t know if I’ll ever love someone else like I love him. I like to think I won’t, that there’s either a way for us to be together or that I’ll find someone I love differently, and better. But I don’t know, and this is how I know it’s true love. True love is a myth, but that doesn’t make it any less real. And maybe it’s more than that. Maybe it’s not just one thing, maybe not just one person. True love is a myth, and I believe in it.
NAAZ MODAN/THE HOYA
FRIDAY, november 6, 2015
the guide
THE HOYA
Mother’s Day Paul Wrenn COL ’16
Was it you who brought me to this place, my first and only home? The world that you inhabited, my cradle, flesh and bone? I think that it was you, at least, I know you stroked my hair. You held me in your mother’s arms and bundled me with care. I’m not a child anymore. I think that I have grown, but I still muffle child’s tears and ache into the phone: “Mother, don’t you care for me, your first and oldest son? I worked and lied and always tried to be your special one. How can you go and do these things? What purpose can they serve but cut and tear and break my heart and tip the cradle curve?” That man is not our family, his world, his home, not mine. A marriage rent and money spent, dishonesty and lies. I hope that I can break your heart and leave you to your ways. I can’t forget, I won’t forgive, I damn your mother’s gaze. My heart is not so hard as that. You gave me many things, so I will try to fight the urge to cut the thinning strings. But I need help. I’m still a child in certain, needing ways. I can’t forget, I will forgive if you can kill this craze. You’ve lost what was, my home is changed; It cannot be the same. But find the mother who I love and see that she will stay, and I will break, and mark the date, and call it Mother’s day.
JINWOO CHONG/THE HOYA
B9
the guide