I’m storing it up
This cold winter air
In the summer
In July, in August
I’m storing it up
This thin mountain air
In New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming
I’m storing it up
This chilly, light-hearted breeze
Of cedar and aspen
I’m storing it up
This peaceful clarity
So that when I’m home again
I won’t die of stress.
I’ve spent the last week in Alice, the city of my paternal relatives, which I visit once or twice annually. I conversed with my cousin Katie (before she and Leisel once again converged into single-minded immaturity), discussing my life and activities over the past 6 months (since my visit at Christmas) with accompanying pictures. There were, sadly, far too many “”ummmm”s and “like”s (the digression of every modern American’s vocabulary) and “I just don’t understand why…”s for my liking.
As I showed picture after picture of Debate, Latin and Octathlon, she could not repress her confusion and slight revulsion. “Lindsay,” she asked, “why on earth do you LIKE being a nerd?” I put her off for a moment, then pulled her outside and sat her down in a plastic green lawnchair on Grandma’s porch.
“You may not understand this,” I began, “but every high school is stratified, and every person or group perceives the hierarchy differently. The overwhelming majority of students evaluate their ‘castes’ based on popularity, but for nerds, like myself, there are no ranks. I am not the only nerd at my school, and we simply exist as a whole (though admittedly, we perceive ourselves to be at the top of any pyramid), diffusing outwards to our acquaintances and then to the ‘regulars.’ It sounds awful, but I (like everyone I am close to) know that one day I will be very successful because I have spent time cultivating my ability, while those who once enjoyed status based primarily on appearances or foolish jokes live thankless lives in constant pursuit of an ephemeral, and possibly even intangible, pop-culture happiness. Maybe one day they will learn to dedicate themselves to their work, but only then or through some miraculous stroke of luck will they succeed. But it isn’t good enough to wait on luck, its effort that wins the day. Why do I like being a nerd? Because nerds try.”
Guilt hammers me when I reflect on what I did. What I did. I kissed him, Ross. I kissed him even though I knew we were leaving in four days to fly home. Cities that are states apart. I kissed him even though I knew this, maybe because I knew this. I broke my own code of conduct to kiss him. I never thought I would kiss someone I didn’t believe was my other half, or that I wasn’t attempting to convince myself might one day be. But I kissed him, even though I knew he was leaving and even though I knew he wasn’t my other half. He was quiet, sweet, nice, and smart, but he didn’t give me stomach pangs when he walked into a room. He was quiet, sweet, nice, and smart, but maybe not so nice if he kissed me with the same knowledge I had. He was quiet, sweet, nice and smart and that should have made me drool, but it didn’t. I kissed him, even though I knew this. I kissed him because my lips had been aching for contact. For four months, my lips had been straining for contact. I had been delirious imagining lips and tongues whenever my eyelids fluttered shut, if only for a second. I shouldn’t have, but I did because I still couldn’t get over craving that last kiss. So even though I knew, the aching overwhelmed me, and I thought maybe if I could just feel lips against mine again I would forget physical desire from then on. I thought I would forget physical desire from then on. I was wrong. It satiated me until I was home again, in a city that was states apart. And then the hunger, the aching, the straining, the daydreaming returned to taunt me. I violated my code of conduct to kiss him, Ross. I didn’t get stomach pains when he walked into a room, but I kissed him. And I still am aching.
Every event is a continuing revelation
Every assumption of causality is misleading
Every knowing glance presumptuous
Because prima facie assertions
Rarely breach the true root of any issue
Time is required
Before the whole story unfolds
I don’t know who I am anymore
All of the archetypes I used to fall within
No longer quite ring true
Perhaps even attempting to classify myself
Deprives me of individuality
And subjects me to the categories
Others have established
To prefabricate the person I will become
Who will buy the products they need to sell
And maintain the equilibrium of industry
But even so
I am not who I was before
I don’t know who I am anymore
I kissed a guy
I barely knew
I kissed a guy
‘cause I thought he was cute
And it was something I never thought I’d do
Kissing a person I barely knew
And yet somehow still
I kissed this guy
Knowing I was leaving soon
The closest to God I’ve ever come
Was lying drowsy in my bed
Eyes closed, lights out
Thinking about my future
And that of the world
And all the people who needed life
Who needed love, who needed help
And everything that I could do
To give them that
And I thought of all the wrongs in the world
And how many of them I was causing
And I prayed there was a way to redeem myself
And I prayed for repentance
And then I resolved myself to make it better
In every word and thought and action
Because it is up to me, if no one else
To reshape this maze of lies
We call the present
I prayed that I could make it better
And then I set off to try.
The more people that I meet
The more handshakes that I greet
The more obvious it becomes
That everyone is just like me
I am not special
But I am not alone either
For what purpose have my lips traversed?
Is there any scenery they have grazed yet unmarked by another?
Have I yet spewed a single original sentiment
Or am I just another redundancy?
In this world I perceive as my own,
Does anything inherently belong to me?
Do I have rights, do I have worth?
Has anything ever been mine?
Or am I just repeating
Reciting the words of ancient philosophers
Reiterating the ideas of generations
Reliving the actions of every other human?
How can I claim proprietary rights to any experience
To any idea, thought, sentence, deed?
I can merely live
With the hope that every priceless moment
Will be permanently ingrained in my memory
And that maybe then, that memory,
If not the action itself,
Will be mine.