the musings of the weary

so i've been really busy; a series of 10 to 14 hour days of class and frenetically paced time on my feet in the lab, with 1 hour of driving and stressing about traffic each way bracketing my day. it's been good; i'm always good when i'm busy. i am known to be very poor at the art of vacationing; i am slowly becoming more adept at weekending. as of late, i can do nothing of consequence for 48 hours without slipping into a listless depression at what is not being done, at what could be if not for the couch and the rain and the tv.

i am bad at change; i have always been. wherever i am, i intuitively feel that the task at hand is to learn the ropes, settle in, prove myself as quickly as possible, carve out a niche for myself and then, once comfortable, get down to business and become productive and efficient. i do not enjoy the break in period; i enjoy my own aptitude, the fruits of all my hard labor. whenever i am in the midst of this trial period, where i am an unknown quantity to all who would judge, i tend to stress out about small things. what i said in lecture. the outfit mis-choice on monday. how i body-checked the bathroom door in front of like, 5 people. i don't dwell on these things, but i notice them and strive to be more conscientious; something there's no need for me to do once i've been established. this morning i had a 2-minute rambling daydream about the amino acid quiz on monday, and how unmotivated i am to learn all those structures over the weekend. whenever i begin to feel sorry for myself, i think of lexi. when i was alone and unloved; when i was in a new city and scared. when the car won't start, and the bank account is empty; when the presentation is 12 hours away and unfinished. when, as eleanor roosevelt said, you must do the thing you think you cannot do. these times, i nearly always think of lexi.

she was a girl in my high school class. we were friendly; talked and joked, were of the more popular crowd and thus, flitted in and out of one another's socializing often. i sat next to her in senior lit class, even passed a note or two. when i went to lunch late, if she were there, i would sit at her table. once i even liked her homemade pants so much, i asked my mom to copy them for me. she didn't even mind that i'd copied her. we elected her to speak at graduation; she was the funniest, wittiest speaker in memory, but i never saw her again. she died in a car accident within a year of graduation. i didn't even know about it for months. there was a discrete period of time when if you had asked me about that blond, effervescent, maternally warm girl lexi, i would have thought of her free in the world somewhere, off tackling things with enthusiasm, and i would have been wrong; she would have been gone already.

whenever i am tired of feeling selfish pity, i think about how much lexi wouldn't mind taking an amino acid quiz, and even failing it. small price to pay to feel the sunshine again. standing up in front of a room of people and talking about something intimidating; stuttering and making mistakes. i'm sure she'd gladly trade places with me. when i pull myself back up by the bootstraps and square my shoulders to face the coming challenge, no matter how paltry or insignificant, i feel as though i'm giving lexi a nod across the great divide; telling her thank you for setting me straight. sometimes i think maybe i am just doing anything i can to make sense of her death; anything to lend it significance, anything so that it won't have been in vain. all the things she might have done, and never got to do, maybe i will do some of them; maybe i will do them better for having known her, and for having this continuing dialog with her. there's a power to the guilt one feels when someone deserving disappears without reason. it keeps you moving; keeps you honest, keeps you busy and true to yourself, if for nothing else other than compensation. and in doing so, it forces you to lead a fuller life, to get the most out of every day, good to the last drop. and for that, i'll be eternally grateful.