Musings on 2016

Because as Maya Angelou puts it, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” 

Anxiety

In December 2015, I got into another car accident. I say “another” because almost exactly three years earlier, December 2012, I was the passenger in an accident that should have killed me.

Context is important here, so let’s get some facts straight: I’ve never liked driving. If I could walk everywhere, I would. My parents had to coax me into my first driver’s permit, almost a year after I could have had it. After that first accident, cars became almost unbearable: every bump in the road, every car horn on the radio, flushed my whole body with fear.

It took me three years of hard work (i.e., driving when I really didn’t want to) to see cars as anything other than a weapon. And right when I could get out of the car without white knuckles and a headache from clenching my jaw so hard, it happened again. Same occasion, same sweatshirt.

This time, I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t smother my fear with statistical chances and “well next time, if I just do this thing better…” I felt helpless to fix the problem because I didn’t know what I had done wrong. Who gets in a car accident on the way home from college for Christmas twice? What could I possibly have done differently? Despite going 50 in a 75 mph zone, despite my new tires, despite being only 10 minutes into my trip, I hydroplaned. I spun right in front of a semi-truck before slamming into a guardrail, totaling my car. In those five seconds of spinning, I truly believed I would die.

Though I sustained no injuries and (thank goodness) didn’t hurt anyone else, the accident unleashed a monster that I am still learning to tame: relentless anxiety. A haunting sense of unease infiltrated every other area of my life. It amplified the voice in my head that asks, “What could go wrong?” instead of “What could go right?”

I don’t like to sugar coat things, especially when it comes to mental health, so here it is: I stopped thinking of restaurants as a fun place to go with friends, and started thinking of them as one bite away from food poisoning. I stopped thinking of plane rides as a chance to clear my mind above the clouds, and started seeing them as an explosion in the works. I stopped dreaming of backpacking the world solo. Anxiety took away the joys of the present and replaced them with stark possibilities in the future. It took away the details that make me, me.

Slowly, I am reclaiming myself. But for much of 2016, I was anxiety’s.

Identity: School

May 2016: I’m graduating college. I’m a little uncertain of what the future holds, but it’s okay. I’ll spend a year teaching English in a classroom in Turkey. Then, I’ll apply to grad school for experimental social psychology. Then, I’ll cross to the other side of academia and be a researcher, or a professor, or something like that. My identity as a student and a scholar remains intact, even through the transition period of graduation.

Or so I thought.

Somewhere around third grade, I remember writing a paragraph about my dreams. I wrote something like, “I want to get all As and go to Harvard.”

I did get all As. I didn’t go to Harvard.

I could have written about curing cancer, I could have written about flying airplanes or penning a novel. And instead, I chose to write about succeeding in school.

Foreshadowing: that’s a problem.

Education has always been a central part of who I am. I love to learn. My idea of the perfect day is to sit with a book and read. I inhabit my own little world of thought. That’s a quality that I adore about myself.

But buried beneath my valedictorian trophy, beneath my 3.97 college GPA, beneath the praises of many teachers and professors lies a sinister thought: I’m only good at school. I’m not good at life in the “real world.” I will never be good at the “real world.” If I can’t hide behind my books, behind my clever comments in class and my stellar academic reputation, everyone will find out about me.

When did that insecurity start? I wish I knew. I wish I could go back to that moment, shake little Angela, and say, “Do you know how powerful your love of learning can be if you couple it with action? Do you know how much impact you could have if you stop being afraid?”

I could get back some years that way.

Here we are, though, in 2017, and I’m finally starting to understand. My grand plan to hide myself within the comfort of academia was shattered beneath my feet when my year in Turkey was cancelled and I fell headfirst into the “real world.” While I still might head back to school, I’m glad for it. I’m glad I have a few years to prove my competence to myself in ways that I otherwise would have avoided. I’m glad that if and when I go back, I’ll be able to use education as a vehicle instead of a destination.

Identity: Politics

*Note: This is not the time or space to criticize my political beliefs. Rest assured, there will be other opportunities.*

It’s fair to say I grew up in a conservative household, in conservative towns, with conservative teachers and friends. Eads, the town I grew up in until I was 7, was recently declared the “Trumpiest” town in Colorado, with 85% of the vote this November going to Trump.

When I was young, I remember genuinely being almost as afraid of Hillary Clinton as I was of the devil. I remember thinking that the absolute worst thing you could ever do in life would be to have an abortion. I remember hearing only one narrative about people on welfare: that they were lazy. And, of course, minorities were just looking for extra attention.

I have no doubt that there are parts of this that I remember wrong. When you’re young, there’s a tendency to think in absolutes. Maybe I missed what were actually much more nuanced conservative arguments, finding a way to make sense of them through simplification.

The fact remains that in my mind, conservative was good, liberal was evil. There was no other way to slice it. And that belief was reaffirmed, unintentionally I am sure, by the adults around me. It didn’t matter how airtight my arguments were, as long as I was playing into the dominant narrative. As long as I didn’t become “one of those liberals.”

I was determined to be good. I was determined to be liked. So, I didn’t question.

When I went to college, I felt like my world flipped upside down. My conservative friends were replaced by liberal ones. My limited-government-pro-life-anti-regulation teachers were replaced by strong-government-pro-choice-more-regulation professors. Everyone at home had always told me, “Those colleges are turning our kids into liberals,” and here it was. I was determined to resist.

I did, for a while. I voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, proudly declaring my vote on Facebook with a commentary about how even people on your own college campus might feel differently than you.

Still, I started to internally question some of the beliefs I had always held dear. What if people on welfare weren’t just lazy? What if minorities really did face challenges that I, as a white person, would never know about? What if “illegal is illegal” grossly oversimplified immigration in this country?

There are a few distinct moments that I remember. One was in sociology class, when we talked about the gap between the rich and the poor. I scoured that data, inside and out, trying to find some way to prove to myself that it wasn’t real, that it was a hoax. Surely the top tenth of the top 1 percent of our country couldn’t make more than the bottom 90? Another was in my first year seminar class, which focused on the Harlem Renaissance. We listened to Billie Holliday’s “Strange Fruit” in class, and I looked up the words on my own later that day. I felt overwhelmed by the feeling that had I been born with a different skin color, that song could have been about my grandfather.

By the time sophomore year rolled around, I was more openly questioning things. I still tried to stay under the radar, tried to avoid questions that asked me about my political affiliations. I tried to calm the dissonance screaming in my brain that I was becoming what everyone back home feared. When I went home, I brought hints of new ideology and ways of thinking, but they were always imprisoned in qualifiers: “not that I’m not a Republican or anything, but…”

This past election cycle, I couldn’t stay quiet anymore. I couldn’t allow what have become values that are central to who I am, to who I aspire to be, to be left dormant. I spoke out loudly about issues I care about, in circles where people agreed with me and in circles where they didn’t.

It was hard. It was hard to feel like I no longer had a place in my own community. It was hard to be unfriended on Facebook by the people who cared for me from the time I was little. It was hard to feel disliked, and it was even harder to feel unloved.

And at the same time, it’s hard for me? A white, middle class, college educated women? For the most part, I have the privilege of avoiding politics when I want to. I get to choose when I want to engage. But for so many, politics are more than posting an occasional link of Facebook. It determines whether they get to eat that day, whether they get to send their kids to the doctor when they are sick, whether they feel safe walking in a hoodie. How can I not speak out?

I’ve learned that I prefer being able to live with myself at the end of the day.

There is so much I don’t know. There are so many perspectives that I haven’t heard or fully grasped. There are so many ways to misrepresent the feelings and intentions of others. I get that. But it doesn’t change my heart is broken over the direction we're going, that I feel estranged from the people I’ve always trusted. And that’s hard.

Introversion vs. Loneliness

College was a valley in terms of my social life. I didn’t start out well that first year, and it made it difficult to find friends in the years that followed. I was still growing into myself. I was insecure. I was too focused for my own good. I developed close friendships later, but it didn’t change that I felt like I didn’t really fit in my own community. That I felt like an outsider—and worse, that I felt like I was the only outsider.

Moving to Fort Collins in September felt like the chance to “re-do” what I did wrong in college. I wouldn’t wait to meet new friends. I’d get involved in the community. I’d host get-togethers. I’d join meet-up groups. I’d be a face to remember.

Despite all my great intentions, I discovered that I’m still Angela. I still need to spend most of my weekend reading alone under my blankets with a cup of tea to feel like myself. I still find parties overwhelming. I still don’t like small talk or “networking.” I still struggle to form new, meaningful relationships. I’m still not great at opening up.

Coupled with a schedule that doesn’t really match my boyfriend’s or the general population’s, I spend quite a bit of time by myself. And 75% of the time, I don’t mind that at all – in fact, I probably need it.

But 25% of the time, I remember that it’s kind of lonely to be alone. I might enjoy a day spent at a table for one, but I wish it was a choice.

Pride

I love this time in my life because I finally get to see my dreams starting to come true. There were so many successes in 2016, so many “way to go, me!” moments.

I graduated college, for goodness sake. With two majors, three practicum experiences, a phenomenal senior honors thesis, and a Fulbright grant.

I spent serious quality time with my family. I reconnected with my parents over the summer. We got great at Uno. We laughed. We rejuvenated each other. We made it through the disaster that was August: my dad getting sick, our house flooding, my Fulbright falling through.

When my plans fell apart, I moved to a new city where I knew maybe five people. I put myself out there, applying for jobs and believing that I would be enough to make it happen. I started figuring out how to “adult,” from paying rent to regular car maintenance to buying new toilet paper before I’m on the last roll.

I started a job that makes me feel proud to do what I do every day. A job where I know I make a difference. If you would have told me a year ago that I would get this job, I would have flipped out. And better yet, I am rocking it!

I’ve taken steps toward making a difference in my community. I joined Zonta, an international women’s advocacy group that works tirelessly to improve women’s lives here in Fort Collins and in the global community. I strive to make volunteer work part of my routine.

I didn’t do everything perfectly this year, but I did everything. And when you’re 23, that’s what counts.