Sanity regained

As I mentioned when we last spoke, I nearly lost my mind this quarter. What happened?

First, understand what I mean by the above claim. When I say I nearly lost my mind, I’m not just talking about the stress which usually arises from a lack of sleep and free time, although those certainly contributed to the overall effect. I’m talking about a boundless, restless energy which almost never left me; a constant feeling that I had some great task waiting for me, and whatever I was doing at the time, it wasn’t the right thing; a desperate seeking for something I couldn’t name or describe.

The good news is that few people noticed. Bryan knew because I talked it over with him, but except for him and Kelly, everyone assumed I was just really busy. I myself recognized symptoms which indicated something, I still don’t know exactly what, was different about me. I paced and fidgeted. I gulped black coffee. I sucked on cigarettes like lollipops. I heard my phone ringing when it wasn’t. I carried on elaborate conversations with myself out loud in the quiet of my empty apartment. My thoughts raced furiously for hours on end, their noise competing with my environment for attention. On an empty stomach, fueled only by nicotine and caffeine, I hot-stepped from the library to Bryan’s house feeling as if my heels were spring-loaded. And everywhere, all the time, I was rushing towards that hazy goal without knowing what it was. All of the above symptoms are things I’ve done (to varying extents) all my twenties, but last quarter that ineffable feeling of seeking, paired with the nameless energy, gave them a different character. I don’t know how to describe what I was feeling except that it felt like madness, or at least what I imagine madness must feel like.

Or is that just what it feels like to be young and unbound?

The possible causes are legion – some of them fall on the wrong side of the blog-line and so won’t be mentioned, but that’s the way it goes. The most obvious is my work load: 17 credits, plus a weekly column and a TA-ship. Last quarter I: read 4200 pages excluding course packets; wrote 32,500 words that I can find; taught a class, attended meetings, and graded papers weekly; attended class more diligently than I have any previous quarter at the UW. Basically, I was pretty busy. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, but not much more is blog-acceptable. I will mention that I had romantic drama with five girls without having a girlfriend even for a moment. I don’t consider this a good thing.

I found an outlet in my writing, but that only worked some of the time. My dad worried that my conspiracy theories in the pages of the Daily were a sign of politics consuming me too much – he was partly right. They were a sign of consumption, all right, but not by politics.

Things came to a head on Sunday, when I abruptly decided that I must, without any discussion, get out of Seattle, and so had Alex come up to get me that afternoon and drive me back to Gig Harbor. The pressure had been building for a while, aided in no small part by finals week and my new method of writing final papers, involving lots of caffeine and frequent cigarette breaks to climb over writer’s block. It really started in earnest, however, last Friday. I attended a going-away party at Mara Lemagie’s house, who you might recall was my first serious girlfriend sophomore year. I knew the evening was bound to be dramatic, so I made sure Bryan was around to serve as wingman; sadly, he left me after an hour or so to fend for myself.

Simply put, attending the party was like stepping through a door into my past – three years, to be precise. It was uncanny, and not always that comfortable. Part of it was the people in attendance, most of whom were intimately connected to that period of my life, but there was a much more pervasive sense of past-ness in the air, which is of course much harder to explain and came as much from within as from without. Mara is one of those rare people who function as a social nexus (Kelly is another), connecting disparate groups without trying. I knew many of the people in attendance without ever realizing they were friends with Mara. I even discovered that night that Bryan’s friend Gabe, whom I’ve known for two years, is Mara’s cousin, and was actually born in the party house. Each new person that arrived amplified the weirdness. It got pretty bad.

While I was talking with a nice girl on the back porch by the keg, Mara’s little sister Emily came up to chat, and the conversation turned to Mara. I was explaining that Mara represented a big signpost in my life, and Emily wanted to know why. I was reluctant to talk, but finally just spit out the straight answer: “Mara was the first person in my life to teach me that I’m not the greatest person alive.” Exit other girl with an awkward shuffle. Later, back on the porch smoking a cigarette, I realized that I was the only smoker at the entire party. A lot changes in three years. I compensated for the palpable, mounting tension inside my own skull by drinking a lot. It worked, but boy did I pay for it later.

Mara is now stationed in Burkina Faso with the Peace Corp. If only all of my ex romances resolved themselves so neatly.

Once I was back in Gig Harbor, I calmed down. I remembered that there was absolutely nothing to do in Gig Harbor but continue going crazy – and a futon for a bed, and no food in the house – so I caught a ride with Alex back to Seattle once more. And I feel fine.

I don’t actually regret going a little crazy – I think it’s necessary from time to time. The extent to which it happened last quarter caught me off guard, but that’s not to say it was a negative experience. It turned out well enough in the end, and I had a hell of a ride. Just think: this very moment a year ago I was sitting in the Frankfurt airport waiting for the next plane to whisk me away to another unknown. I definitely went a little crazy then, as well, but it worked out alright too. I suppose what I’m getting at here is that, while losing my grip on sanity isn’t something I necessarily look back on fondly, it does hold a certain charm, just like survivors of war recollect war time with a certain affection. It doesn’t make that much sense – but then, who said it had to?