It is the middle of the semester, and I am 1,217 miles from home. But I feel like I’m on Mars. Without a spacesuit. And I’m floating uncontrollably out of orbit. And I’m suffocating. And there is no sound. And I am alone.
It is the middle of the semester, and I feel anything but grounded. Or adapted. Or settled in or thriving or successful or whatever words they spit at you to make you feel like being 1,217 miles away from home is an experience you’ll get used to. I am not used to it.
It is the middle of the semester, and I am reading a picture book that my mom used to read to me and last month she sent me a pillowcase with her perfume on it and I push my face against the pillowcase and I cry for my mom and I am a child again. When I was little, I cried for my mom and she came and she wrapped her arms around me and she read me this book. I am 1,217 miles away from my mom.
It is the middle of the semester, and I have friends. I have great friends. I have friends who love me and support me, and I love them and support them and I am happy when we’re together. When your best friend on campus tells you that they don’t want to be your best friend on campus for a while, it is okay to feel sad or mad or angry or terrible. It is okay for them to feel like they don’t want to be your best friend on campus for a while, or ever again. It is okay to feel. This is not the end of the world.
It is the middle of the semester, and I am standing in my bathroom with my friends. I flip a coin. It lands heads up and I cut off a chunk of hair with pink safety scissors. This morning, if someone asked me my favorite part of myself, I would say my hair. I’d been growing it out for a while. It was finally long enough to braid. Now I am flushing it down the toilet. And it is exhilarating and tremendous.
It is the middle of the semester, and I am standing in the bathroom and I am looking in the mirror and I am crying. I am looking at my hair and the negative space where my hair used to be, and I am looking at my too-short, too-blunt bangs and I am crying and I am crying and I am crying. I am crying for my mom and I am crying for myself and now I am on the tile floor and the tiles are cold.
I am going to get my laundry from the dryer. I don’t see anybody in the hallway. I don’t know what time it is. This is how my depression manifests. In fluorescent mundanity.
It is the middle of the semester, and I am 1,217 miles from home. But I am writing still. And I am crying which means I am feeling which means I am living still. And I look in the mirror and I see my bad haircut and I see the curls which I missed when I was cleaning up and I see those things which existed in the past and those things which will exist indefinitely into the future and I feel a sense of comfort in knowing that my bad haircut is not the end of the world. My bad day/bad month/bad mood is not the end of the world. Anything that is broken or lost or on-hold can hurt and hurt and hurt but cannot stop the world from spinning. And I am not okay right now, but I will be.
It is the middle of the semester, and I am growing. I am learning. I am making mistakes and I am changing and I still cry for my mom in the middle of the night and I still don’t eat fish because I think it’s yucky and that’s okay. I am 1,217 miles from home but some days, in the golden hour, wide-eyed and in love, it doesn’t feel quite so far.
BONUS – The haircut in question: