I have a battered, wooden dresser next to my bed. It has four drawers and is covered with Post-Its and drawings detailing Kingdom Animalia, arranged in evolutionary order, along with a timeline of Life on Earth and details for gel electrophoresis. The top drawer holds all my athletic gear: tank tops, mesh shirts, shorts, the stray soccer sock. The second is home to three fat plastic binders crammed full of wide-ruled paper filled with large, childish handwriting detailing tales of lost knighthood and turbulent seas. The third drawer contains my comics collection that I hardly ever touch anymore. All the plastic-slick books with their colorful pictures are gifts. One Pearls Before Swine collection is covered with numerous bling-sporting, cigar-smoking Stephan Pastises. That one was from my brother. The fourth drawer often gets stuck; it is slightly crooked on its runners. In it are a coffee thermos from my grandparents and a few battered wide-rule notebooks, also filled with crooked script. Most of the drawer, however, is filled with scraps of paper, some laminated, some in cheap plastic frames, some crumpled and shoved far, far away from the light. Along with the scraps of paper are a few pieces of recycled polished wood and lengths of itchy ribbons in all sorts of colors, from which hang more shiny pieces of metal.
I don't really like to open that bottom drawer. It requires far too much effort to jimmy it open, and even then, what is there to see? Fancy paper with big words on them? Frames commemorating achievements of years past? Medals worn for one brief, shining moment, then cast aside as inconsequential?
Surely, the shelves above my desk are covered in trophies; honor chords and medallions hang so thickly that I might be typing under the lost Hanging Gardens of Babylon. All I have up there, however, are soccer medals and trophies from years gone by, little post-it notes from my brother on a Christmas many years ago. I can't bring myself to take them down even though my achievements have by far outgrown recreational summer leagues and afternoons scoring own-goals.
In my drawer are a Mayoral Proclamation, unopened letters of acceptance, heavy plaques of commendation, framed tokens of membership. For some reason, I like to hide them away and pretend like they don't exist.
And yet, I gave up a medical internship at USC for a chance to go off and win some more awards. How does this make any sense? Whenever I hear mention of my friends in the program, my stomach starts to crawl because I think: That should be me. But it's not. If I had been forced to make this decision a few years ago, I would have chosen the internship over anything. The medical field. That was my dream. Now? I'm not so sure. What has changed?
I leave for State tomorrow, and am looking forward to it with equal parts excitement and dread. I need to get out of here for a bit, but am not particularly keen on word-sparring with other girls for an entire week. Maybe it won't turn out like that. I hope. Right now, I have just one song on my mind.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Family
It's times like these, sprawled across my brother's bed, that I wonder what family is all about.
He comes home, and I greet him with my usual "Hi, Booger." He replies with the typical "Hey, Fartbag." His bed is so comfortable, large, soft, and squishy. It is always dark in his room. Rarely does he open the blinds. I grab a pillow and curl up on my stomach, watching as he examines his glow-in-the-dark shirt in the half-light of the room. He catches me watching and smacks me with his laundry. I shout, and he leaves, laughing. That's about all I ever see of him anymore. A minute. Two minutes. No long talks under the blankets, no more blasting alien spaceships under the pillows on Saturday mornings when I would sneak into bed with him to save the world. Now, we call each other names we don't even mean, hoping that love of the past will keep us together.
The past. It was more than just that. Everything was so much simpler. I didn't have to worry about when everyone would get home so I could retreat to the relative safety of my room. There were nights when I could just sit in my favorite corner of the couch with good old Brian Jacques and be undisturbed except for Vin Scully and the Dodgers. Before the need for large, flat-screen televisions and booming sound systems. Before endless questions, demands, rising tensions, voices. Perhaps it is me that has changed. A radical change, indeed. Playing catch with my brother in the family room with the squishy pink football, careful not to knock over the lamp. That was before even soccer and happy evenings at the park before Coach Leo got thrown out and the nights soured. Before even the radio came to gather dust on my bookshelf, before I even bought my first CD, when everything was written by hand and so felt, not merely seen. Before he died. I guess that's all it comes down to. Why, after so many years, I still think of this, I do not know. Perhaps because I was still young when it happened. Really, though, I was old enough. Thirteen is plenty old to confront death. Four years since the bloody fourth month of his fourteenth year. I am thinking dark thoughts and speaking in reverse once more. This should stop.
He comes home, and I greet him with my usual "Hi, Booger." He replies with the typical "Hey, Fartbag." His bed is so comfortable, large, soft, and squishy. It is always dark in his room. Rarely does he open the blinds. I grab a pillow and curl up on my stomach, watching as he examines his glow-in-the-dark shirt in the half-light of the room. He catches me watching and smacks me with his laundry. I shout, and he leaves, laughing. That's about all I ever see of him anymore. A minute. Two minutes. No long talks under the blankets, no more blasting alien spaceships under the pillows on Saturday mornings when I would sneak into bed with him to save the world. Now, we call each other names we don't even mean, hoping that love of the past will keep us together.
The past. It was more than just that. Everything was so much simpler. I didn't have to worry about when everyone would get home so I could retreat to the relative safety of my room. There were nights when I could just sit in my favorite corner of the couch with good old Brian Jacques and be undisturbed except for Vin Scully and the Dodgers. Before the need for large, flat-screen televisions and booming sound systems. Before endless questions, demands, rising tensions, voices. Perhaps it is me that has changed. A radical change, indeed. Playing catch with my brother in the family room with the squishy pink football, careful not to knock over the lamp. That was before even soccer and happy evenings at the park before Coach Leo got thrown out and the nights soured. Before even the radio came to gather dust on my bookshelf, before I even bought my first CD, when everything was written by hand and so felt, not merely seen. Before he died. I guess that's all it comes down to. Why, after so many years, I still think of this, I do not know. Perhaps because I was still young when it happened. Really, though, I was old enough. Thirteen is plenty old to confront death. Four years since the bloody fourth month of his fourteenth year. I am thinking dark thoughts and speaking in reverse once more. This should stop.
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