The same day last year, I posted on social media, “I hope I return a good person next year.”
My social media copy this year — what I had planned — was just supposed to just be “still a good person a year later”, echoing last year. But in the 11th hour, since I would now officially be in my late 20s, I decided to write a short reflection.
It will take a while for me to get my writing mojo back after taking a hiatus for so long, but I am trying.
The same day last year, at the tail end of my 4th year of PhD, I made a decision. I was going to leave the places and people that made me miserable and start over.
The Lishu at that point in time was disillusioned. She felt as if her past years were all for nothing. She thought she could do everything, but accomplished nothing. Such a waste of her time and her family’s support.
At my worst, I had a panic attack every day before I went into work. I would sit in my car and feel the sky spinning around me. Never before in my life had I experienced this feeling, but I was always too ashamed to admit it. Even if I told someone, they probably wouldn’t believe me.
They must be thinking that I am faking it.
I would wonder every day if the world would be better off without me, a little bit less twisted.
When I was on the brink of a total breakdown, the mentor who gave me my first research experience 7 years ago took me on despite the optics at the time. He didn’t say much about my situation with my previous lab, but he effectively gave me the opportunity and courage to continue my education and research, to try again.
Now that I had the chance, I would reform, heal, and move forward. I would promise my broken self that I would crawl over the hurdles one by one, wipe away the tears drop by drop, grow my mind and knowledge day by day, and walk on that figurative long road step by step.
The sun may still be far away, but it’s there always.
At the end of my 25th year, I left Wisconsin, my home for five years, and traveled halfway across the States with my lab to continue my studies at a new institution. That last month in WI, I slowly wiped away the evidence of my presence there, visiting the places I so loved one last time, knowing I probably would not return for a long while.
Just the day before, my cat Meow and I experienced our first monsoon rain in Arizona. It was a 90-degree slow bake at night, but our power went out in the monsoon microbursts. We got through the night on a small USB fan and a bar of phone signal. The next day, Meow was so nervous and hot that he threw up in the car. I pulled over and took him onto my laps, wiping his mouth and body as he slowly calmed down. He wrapped his paws on my forearm.
In between the guilt, it occurred to me that my cat son has also been with me through many difficult days and nights. He doesn’t say a single human word (duh,) but is always genuinely there for me.
Right now, as I type, he is leaning against me, sound asleep.
And I, joltingly realize, that I have not had a panic attack in a long time.
Today, my 26th birthday, I don’t seem to have been completely beaten down by the past year.
The road ahead of me is far from smooth, but I’m carrying around in my symbolic toolbox just a tad more resilience and confidence than I had before — the worst obstacles, those things that I want to stop and cry about, are the storms that I can always make it out of as long as I keep moving forward.
Life, I guess, never goes in vain, even if it is the wrong path. There will always be many moments to rejoice along the way. If I regret that I ever didn’t try hard enough, I will double my efforts from now on. The next time something like this happens, I’ll be braver. That can’t be nothing, can it?
I often joke with my partner now that fate just doesn’t like to leave me alone.
He would say, “Don’t be so self-absorbed, dude.”
Hopefully these little hijinks are a good omen to me continuing to “be a good person” for this new lap around the sun.
Happy birthday and keep up the good work.
The same goes for you too.
