Day 66: feels good to be back

Status - damage control
Mood - great
Water - 4 liters

Day 66 of 112

This past week I have been totally immersed in school. Read and work, that's what students do. Some of us major in physics or biology or engineering. Some make pieces of art. Some students smoke and drink, but those that do are not very successful, at least I don't think they are.

Talking to my roommate the other night I realized something that I would have probably never considered before. I was editing an old poem of mine, it was easier than reading about long term potentiation and memory formation. The Office was on. Jim almost proposed to Pam. I wasn't really paying attention. I was more interested in the line "little cold eyes/small birds fall to sleep". And when I wrote the last word down I jumped off my bed and started to dance in the middle of the room. When my roommate looked up at me I threw myself against him. He would later claim that this was the defining moment of my life. It's not that I never danced or even wrestled with him, but that he finally saw how I felt the world - in words. Who could be so obsessed with writing poems (he seemed to ask)? I suppose you would need some type of angry hard upbringing, or would have to be out of touch, some how, with common people. But really, I have never tried to understand why I love to write, or more surprisingly, how I have gone from producing poems to majoring in Human Biology. For so long it has been easy to just pull my bio textbooks from my book-bag, having spent countless nights dark eyed and upright, shivering on the 13th floor of the Sci-Li with secret hopes of becoming a doctor. It is well known that I won't let myself fail. I know there are high hopes for me too, and if I somehow fall short my life couldn't get any worst. But lately it has. It's not that my dreams of becoming a physician are gone, but that I have come to a place in my life where I need to accomplish something more. I've turned in on myself, to my own dreams, the nature of which eludes me. I realize that some people will become lawyers and engineers. Some will go on to medical school. And without a doubt, they will have their big houses, their landscaped yards and high city views. As for me, well, these days some of us want nothing more than the opportunity to start over. Maybe even go to graduate school to pursue my dream of becoming a published poet :-)

I need to do what makes me happy. I know my potential, now no more wasting time.

My roommate is looking at me, I can tell. I want to thank him for his insight.

--Jay