Nobody Said It Was Easy

There were a lot of things that people told me about growing up. It's hard paying taxes. It's hard making rent or a mortgage every month. It's hard to have children and get them to school on time and still have enough time to make it into work yourself. Those are things that I get. You don't pay your taxes, and you are arrested. You don't pay your rent, and you're evicted. You don't get to work on time, and there is some kind of repercussion. Those things are black and white. It's math. And I was always so amused when people in college would tell me how hard biology and math majors had it because it was a discipline that was complicated and complex, but I never saw it that way. Yes, math and science can be very hard, but it's so determinable. One wrong number, and the equation is just... wrong. It's English that I always found to be the most complicated, and ironically, English was always my worst subject. I never made less than an A in any math or science course that I was in because I know how to get things right. I pay attention to detail and error.
English is where things become complicated because there are grades in between an A and an F. Your analysis is only as good as the clarification that you bring behind it. Does Mrs. Dalloway lend itself to a feminist interpretation? Prove it. It's not as simple as you would think. So, as someone who excels as the supposedly "difficult" parts of life: the math and the taxes and the time management, it's disappointing to me that the easy part is what I find to be the most complicated. Everyone told me how expensive Washington D.C. would be, but no one ever told me how hard it is to be... lonely. No one ever told me what it's like to go to sleep holding a pillow, imagining that it is a person beside you because you can't remember the last time that you fell asleep with someone in your arms. No one ever explained to me what it would be like to love someone with everything inside of you, and then have that person who at one point felt the same about you... cease to feel that way anymore.
And that brings me to tonight. After what seemed like a hopeless journey for employment, I decided to start serving. About a month later, I was hired on as a public relations intern for an absolutely amazing company. I didn't want to abandon the work I had been doing as a graduate assistant, so I turned in my notice for the serving job. And then, for my final weekend, I was scheduled for a double shift on Saturday, and the 6 hour morning shift on Sunday, after I had asked for only one shift this weekend. And after working five days and developing what I have believed to be a new string of some deadly flu, I decided that I just couldn't pull it off. I'm exhausted and frustrated and homesick and lonely and all the aforementioned things that no one tells you about as a child. Suddenly, all of the numbers and taxes seem relatively simple.
And because I'm naturally Catholic, I turn the decision of whether to call in or not as revolutionary as Sophie's Choice. In true Justin fashion, I consulted those that I'm closest to in hopes of assurance.
And that's something else about life. We find ourselves in these predicaments and these situations where we know that there's really no right or wrong answer because there's going to be a consequence either way. Someone is always going to be upset, so when you look over and you see your friend/Jennifer Grey/Baby in a corner, the best thing you can do is just support that person, and maybe even thank God that for a moment, you're not in that position. You're lucky enough to have to deal with the Math and not the English for once, and even if you get it wrong, you know that you've really gotten it wrong. So, maybe I'm overreaching, but I think we have an obligation to have sympathy for those who get put in a tight spot, no matter how big or little it may seem.
And I'm sure as you're reading this, you're thinking Justin, this isn't some pivotal decision that is going to have a catastrophic effect one way or the other, and to that I would say... you're right. It's just a serving job, and if I hadn't of called in tonight and just decided to skip tomorrow, the worst that could happen is that I get fired from a job that I've already put in a notice for. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that life is simply not an easy road to navigate. When you're sick and there's no one around to take care of you, it adds on pressure. And when you come home at 6:30 after an eleven hour day (once you add commute time in) and the only thing to really hold on to is a pillow, that adds some pressure as well. When everything you know is 500 miles away, and you struggle to fully trust anyone you meet in this new world, that adds pressure, too. And I'm sure that all of those details seem oddly specific to my life, and in essence, this post may sound entirely self-absorbed (I'm winking at you, Dana), but I urge you to look at your own life. Reflect back on the decisions that you made, and then five times as much time reflecting back on why you made that decision. Very few decisions in life are made based strictly on the details directly influencing the question at hand.
So, as I've been bargaining my way through the past two days between spouts of blowing my nose on countless Kleenex, I've desperately tried to justify my want need (yes, need) to not go into work this weekend. And what I've left out is all the other reasons why it's just not in the cards. I think that it's something that we don't often think about. If you were to ask a logical person, a scientist perhaps, what a human needs to survive, he or she would respond: water, food, and shelter. A very clear-minded, correct choice. Ultimately, all that we need is water, food, and shelter (and possibly some NyQuil, in my case). But if you were to ask me what we need, I would say a combination of love, hope, and support. Maybe that's a little too frilly for you, but think back on a time when you were in a corner.
Yes, you may be an introvert and a bit of a logically-minded person. No, you may have not needed a hug, but what was it that you needed? I'm sorry that you're struggling with this thing in your life, but it all seems pretty evident to me. Morality and logic and evidence support that you just need to do this... but since you're having a hard time, here's some water and shelter. Was it space that you longed for? Did you want to be alone and mull over all of these complications resting inside of your head? Life is more than just a series of yes and no answers, and when I think back to all of the things that people told me about life, I think I know why no one ever said anything about these moments. It's because we can figure out the complicated, complex stuff... the stuff with numbers and charts. It's these moments of seemingly insignificant decisions that get us down because resting on top of it is the stockpile of issues that we bottle up and don't know how to confront. Nobody said it was easy, but nobody said it would be so hard.

Note: As cliche and predictable as it is that I used a Coldplay lyric as the title of this post, I would also like to draw attention to the irony that the title of the song is called "The Scientist."