Darkness Before the Dawn.

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.

Day One.

Like any other day, I woke up half-asleep.  The three alarms on my cell phone had failed to spur me out of bed.   After prolonging the inevitable, a further 15 minutes, I grudgingly left the warmth and safe security of my blankets to start my morning routine.  I stood in the shower, hot water at full blast, cleansing the cold that had seeped into my bones in the brief walk from the bed to the shower.  Then came the bagel in the toaster and out the door I went.

The drive to work is one ritual that I had completed too many times to count.  Start my car, turn off the automatic air-conditioning, and press play on my ipod.  As I pulled out of the driveway and made my way behind morning rush-hour, I looked to my left and saw an all too familiar scene.  Like me, the driver to my left was rubbing the sleep out of his tired eyes and concentrating on reducing the distance between him and the freeway as fast as humanly possible.  After about ten minutes of stop and go, I finally reached the ramp onto highway 101.  Here I was greeted with groggy morning commuters who did not seem to understand that going fifty-five or less on a sixty-five speed limit is just plain rude.  And slower traffic should have the common courtesy to take the right most lanes.  At the same time, I had to dodge the over-eager ones who thought sticking as close to the rear bumper as possible would somehow inspire me to go faster.  As a testament to the inefficiency and sheer recklessness of this technique, there was an accident almost daily.  Thirty stressful minutes later, I got off my exit and cruised the rest of the way uneventfully, to work.

From exiting the freeway until I reached work was the only time of day that I had no worries in life.  There was nothing to stress or worry about.  The stress from the freeway melted away.  Replaced only by pure bliss from enjoying a fresh start to a new day, the windows rolled down, savoring the amazing mid-sixties California weather.


"Start every day as if it had its own purpose"

My boss and mentor, repeatedly reminded me of this mantra.  Nevertheless, I believed and still to this day, believe it to be easier said than done.  And thus, soon came to realize just how easy it was to be entrapped by routine; only looking forward to the end of work day, then the end of the work week.  I had unwittingly slipped into a mindset of living for the weekend without appreciating the gift of every new day.

Why wouldn't I want to get out quickly and painlessly to freedom?  After all, this was a job.  I was paid to show up promptly, everyday by 9 am; then, 9 hours later, clock out at 6 pm.  Although I was paid for 8 hours, most days I would arrive at home just as my clock would turn 10 pm.


However, there is truth to the statement.  We should appreciate every day.  We do not know when our mortality will catch up.  One sunrise, we will get up and unknowingly, will not live to see another.  With the risk of sounding extreme, unlikely, or extremely unlikely, it is true.  I do not know what day will be my last.   Logic would reason that based on this conclusion, I would strive to live every day to the fullest.  Realism strikes with the result of falling into complacency.

As the day progressed, I did my work. I was 20 years old, and I was alone.