Parting thoughts from 2008

I never really summarized my year. Sure, I did a stupid survey thing, but there have been so many changes that have happened to me in the last year, it is so hard to believe that I am where I am today because of those changes.

Really though, the most serious changes came over the past six months or so. I've been reading through my old blog and some of this one, and I'm starting to realize how naive I was with this whole lab experience thing. I mean, the warning signs were all there: it took a month to even process me as a worker in the lab, I seriously thought that I had a shot at getting published, whatever.

I think a huge part of my realization came when I did the Perfect water project. I designed the whole thing, and busted my ass on the project, but ultiamtely, everyone sort of forgot about it, and my boss told me that for financial reasons, I had to stop.

At the same time, the ascendant star of the lab's golden child ruined any chance I had at reestablishing myself. Every possible laboratory resource diverted to him.

The whole not being paid (still waiting...) thing did not incur much confidence, especially when my co-instructor had nothing but thanks and praise for my work.

While the world of tha lab was collapsing around me, I had some severe personal setbacks that, as always, are too private to reveal in such an open environment, and I will have to send it to speculation as to what these problems are. Basically, the period from July 2 to August 2, when all of this lab stuff (plus the stresses of my language lab job) was going on was probably the worst month long period in my life according to all of my personal standards. While there were a few blips outside of this period, the vast majority of my problems occurred in this period.

2008 was another period wherein my confirmation of perpetual solitude resolidified. I am not meant to marry, and the year has shown me the ever present need for me to dedicate myself to my own pursuits. Like Elizabeth, I have learned that I am strongest when I stand alone, and this year probably was the one in which I really understood why.

What has seemed ever so difficult for me, in that, looking on my past, what bothers me the most is still 2004. 2008 may have been bad, but my senior year of high school was no doubt one of my worst periods of life. In part, this was because of the always powerful mixture of hormones, perpetual rejection, and staunch isolation in order to stem the personal malice I felt because of the first two. There was a good period in early 2005 where I just stopped wanting to live, and my guess is that I was in some kind of depression. These issues have been discussed in some detail, but the problem is that I have spent the last years simply covering up many of the underlying problems that led to my despair rather than dealing with them. It, in some cases, is easier because of my maturity. Not only have the surges of teenage hormones stopped (thank the fates for that!), but I care less about what others think of me than I did before. While I require the respect of others, I am not so vain as to hope that other like me (in fact, I prefer hate and respect over love and respect).

But even over four years later, I am still haunted by the memory of Brandon. Even though I barely knew him (I actually only have one memory, and it was one of those staunch and haughty memories of mine, where I, with my nose pointed high, gloated at knowing some banal fact that made me look intelligent), the whole three months that I spent on his portrait after his death made me know this person without ever knowing him. Perhaps part of the problem is that I have always longed for some kind of encounter, despite the fact that I do not believe in an afterlife. Normally, we have memories, but my one memory is so opaque as to render any such warm thoughts useless.

I have become more serious as I have gotten older. While I can be made to laugh easily, I always consider the more serious elements of life first, and what I find most humorous is the ironic twist of life.

I don't know anymore. Sometimes it would be best, I think, to be locked away someplace....