Depression.
At the time, I was utterly and thoroughly alone; thousands of miles away from those who I called my friends and family. It was an opportunity of a lifetime considering my age and status in life. I was at the forefront of cutting edge research. But all I could think about was "Why am I here?" and "Why did I leave everything I know and love?". Even while preparing my cells, looking after the lab mice, and running the polymerase chain reaction, I couldn't help but think about all the mistakes made in my life. I found myself thinking about the regret and desperate desire to turn back time, if only for five or six years.
Then I realized. I realized why I had flown away, from everything I had known. I had come here one year later than originally planned to leave behind her and everything she stood for.
There had been quite the dispiriting event in my life. My relationship of more than a year: the longest committed relationship in my dating history, had ended. It may seem trivial, considering it had ended in March of the same year, but every day I replayed it as if it was some forsaken broken record. Reliving every moment, every joy and every sorrow, swirling in the depths of my mind. I was a silent spectator to my own life. Those familiar with the demise of a relationship of significance can understand the spectre of grief which now resided firmly within my heart and mind.
Denial.
Denial slowly creeped into my mind. I was in denial. I wanted to forget we had ever met. The past two years were hastily compartmentalized in my mind. Drowning myself in work, going to the gym, promptly followed by dinner and sleep, provided welcome distraction. This cycle repeated itself the next day for many next days to come.
Then, the anger.
How could this happen? After all the time. All the caring. All the love. It had ended as promptly as it had begun. I hated the relationship and myself for opening up. I hated my emotions, my heart, every fiber of my being. I hated the entire institution of social mores. I hated it, despised it, loathed it, scorned it.
Ironically, denial works both ways. While dating, I had denied my feelings for her. For so long, I convinced myself: it was unnecessary, when the time came I could do without. Fooling myself into thinking I didn't need someone to care, to love, and to be there at the end of the day; waiting with open arms.
Throughout the relationship I frequently told myself it would be fine if and when the end came. Yet, through it all, found myself time and time again making sacrifices. Every sacrifice made, I lost a part of myself, piece by piece. Cooking for her, waking up early just to make sure she made it to class, encouraging her to stay strong through the stress, every action led to the loss of my independence and self-identity. When pharmacy interviews rolled along, I helped prepare for the interview, comforted her when even with a 4.0 and being a model student, she was rejected without explanation. Afterwards, I was there to pick up the pieces when through the crippling throes of depression, she cried incessantly. And I was there to stop her struggles to take her own life.
Even through it all, I loved her. It was nothing and everything. I could and would do everything for her. When the summer came, the thought of three months apart tore at us. So I hastily acquired an internship in Korea so that even if only for one month, before leaving for my summer internship at Stanford, we could spend it together. Even after being offered a full-time position following my internship, the torrent of emotions and travesty of the heart compelled me to turn it down for fear of losing her. Thus, in one grand gesture, it exposed just how much the walls set up to prevent this very perversion, had been thoroughly dismantled.
In preoccupied fervor, I failed to see signs that I had in fact, come to rely on her. More than I ever imagined.
In retrospect, we are graced with the clarity of regret and immured with the propensity for longing.
The longing of returning to the way it was. In this particular case, the longing of forgetting it ever happened. Because through it all, 491 days later, I was a changed soul.
