In the days after the election, I kept losing things. I would walk out of classes without my umbrella, unplug my phone and leave the charger, and wander in and out of my house missing socks, wearing too few or too many layers. Part of this was the natural upheaval of fall and the end of a quarter, but a lot of it came from the feeling that the world as I knew it, for the second time, was falling apart around me. And I fell apart with it. It was like my mind was reshuffling, trying to figure out anything extra we could jettison, letting go of my chargers, my water bottle, my computer. I felt like I was shrinking into myself, trying to leave everything behind. I had convinced myself that I would need to do that to survive.
From the time I could read full sentences until I was about 12, I was buried in books. The outer world (friendships, school, my family) was a sort of holding place, a waiting room until I could go sit somewhere and read in silence. Everything — including summer camps, vacations and the outdoors — was anxiety-inducing and wildly unpredictable, unlike the comforting familiarity of a story.
And I would lose things. Anything my mother sent me to school with (lunchboxes, jackets, hairpins) that wasn’t physically tied to me would spin off into the detritus of life that I frankly refused to be a part of. And when I lost things, I wouldn’t replace them. I would go months without water bottles, my poor mother none the wiser, drying up like a prune, because the outside world felt less important than the inner one. Inside my head, there was only me. Out there, you could get hurt. People could be mean to you. Things could end, and die, and cause you pain. And why would anyone want to dive headfirst into something like that?
Eventually, the world caught up with me. I was what you might call a late bloomer, in that the first time I started to actually make connections with people and value them was a good bit of the way into secondary school. The upside of all of this, though, is that I got to watch myself fall in love with life because I was conscious enough to see it happen.
It’s a cliche to say that my world went from black-and-white to high-def color TV, but it’s true. The world before I participated in it all felt vaguely gray-colored. And then the sun came out from behind the clouds.
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I decided that life was worth living and that people were good. I just know that someday, I looked around me and realized that I had given myself away to so many people that I barely had enough time to tell them how much I treasured their company. I didn’t have to read about beautiful art, or the way the sunshine slants through the windows, or the warmth of a cup of tea when I need it, or the way I would one day discover and love every one of the four seasons. I didn’t have to imagine how wonderful it can be to see eddies of fall leaves, or chipmunks, or that really fat raccoon on my way to school when you are opening yourself to the world. I was already living it.
I was late to loving life, but that didn’t mean I loved it any less. It was like every moment of joy was a gift to me. But it also meant that every sharp pain and dull ache that comes along with being in the world was new, and newly painful as well.
The fact is that it hurts immeasurably to be in this game for anyone other than yourself. Especially when you feel that you have let people you care about down or when you lose the feeling of safety that even in the best of times is never guaranteed. Every new person you care about (and if you are lucky, that can include an unfathomable number of people) is another way you can be hurt. When you choose to really live, it gives the universe the license to really hurt you.
It’s terrible to feel opening your arms to the world only results in getting punched in the stomach. And when you’re going through a terrible time, any strong emotion can feel painful. I walked past a particularly beautiful lily the other day and it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Every love of my life seems like it might get taken away from me. It is suddenly obvious to me that they will, someday, be taken away from me.
In the days after last week’s election, my instinct was to escape, to withdraw and to let go of anything that was tying me to here. If it’s all burning down, I reasoned, I’ve got to get out of the house first and leave the rest.
But the fact is that you cannot go through life alone. To go back to the days when I ignored everything around me, just to save myself the pain of living through the moment we’re in, would also be depriving myself of the joy that comes when you let yourself love your life and the people around you.
Most of the things I lost in those very fraught hours after the election eventually came back to me. Some were found where I left them by friends, others ended up in school Lost and Founds and others were just in the dark corners of my backpack. I replaced the few items that were actually lost because I don’t want to go months without a water bottle or a charger again. I want to live a life that allows me to love being here. Not one that I just have to get through.
I refuse to make myself less of a person because the country I live in wants me to. I will not lose something before it is taken from me, and if anyone tries to take it I will fight with everything I have to keep it. I refuse to fall out of love with the world, no matter how many times it tells me that would be the best option, that we really aren’t suited for one another. The only thing I can do — the only thing we can do — is make this place somewhere that might be able to, one day, love us back.
If you have a pressing problem you need advice on, or a response to this, email [email protected] with “Best Guess” in the subject line.
Mika Ellison is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
