36. glass shatters
glass shatters. when you throw a bottle of kombucha from safeway on the ground while waiting at the bus stop at 10:15 pm, glass shatters. when you're looking out the window with your phone dead, looking out into the inky night, glass shatters.
shatters.
it's mysteriously exalting to hear that sound. to feel that vibration in the air, the impact it makes on the ground.
i'm writing at 1:26 am. i haven't showered in three days. it kind of adds to my character. which character, you ask? now that's the question, isn't it?
this has been the longest week of the entire year. and that's including the week I flew to tokyo to take the mcat on a friday. what makes it so long? great question. i don't know. maybe it's the fact that i'm exhausted from editing and revising from criticism for my med school application, which i'm submitting on friday, two days from today. maybe it's that i'm playing this devastating role as a teenager who gets diagnosed with HIV four times over the past two days and one day more. or maybe it's that i'm flying to korea to celebrate my mom's birthday and secretly because i just need a change, i can't do it alone and i need to go back to where i came from to re-gather myself.
so much stuff. and through it all, most days in the simulation center, i'm waiting. i'm waiting more than i'm acting. i wait 1 hour at a time between each 30 minute session. that's like the opposite of pomodoro or tabata or any kind of high intensity kind of work.
and i'm actually exactly in the kind of environment that's good for me. i'm in a school, i'm in a library, i'm in a theater. i'm around doctors, i'm around actors, i'm around teachers. the whole salad mix. and i'm living the double life indeed. working with doctors and students by day, playing as an actor at night.
it's just so much. i wish i had more glass bottles to throw on the ground.
i ate panda express today and honestly it was the best option i had. writing my library instead of swimming or doing other thing like lifting or basketball and any kind of exercise. i guess i'm exercising a different kind of muscle. i want the answer to life to fall into my lap. a path. a woman. a meal. a man. a god. a reason. a meaning. a purpose.
shit's getting pretty deep, isn't it?
well hey, glass shatters. it doesn't crumble. it doesn't scatter. it doesn't spread. it shatters. you know what else shatters? hearts. anything that's fragile. i'm feeling fragile.
"am i going to die?" / "i'm going to die." is my favorite line i say as Bash, the 17-year-old i play. even though i'm not a teenager on the streets of the tenderloin who panhandles and has sex for food and money, even though i didn't just get an HIV diagnosis, and even though i barely even know what HIV is myself, apart from that it suppresses the body's own immune system, i can relate to that question. what the fuck is happening to me. am i doomed? my life is over, isn't it? where's hope?
my eyelids are heavy, my stomach bloated yet empty and yearning, my mouth yawning. it's time to go to bed. i'm scared to wake up tomorrow and continue this cycle. i'm scared for what's to come tomorrow. and it is a cycle, in some ways. it's a cycle of waking and sleeping, excitement and boredom, freedom and claustrophobia. loneliness, misunderstanding, isolation and sadness. happiness, recognition, adventure. i love the work that i do at the simulation center. and i love the entire process of writing—brainstorming, writing, editing, sharing, revising. i love teaching. everything's awesome, it's all there. and what is the problem?
problem?
am i looking for a problem?
this is a challenging season of life. summer will come soon and greet me with warmth. and i'll greet her with warmth. summer is around the corner.
the thing that saved me today was the man checking my two juices at safeway. his name was glenn, with two Rs. "nice name," i said, and his face lit up a bit. "with two Rs," he chuckled. "the only other guy i know with two Rs is that one asian guy on that one show..." "the walking dead," i say. "that's the one." that's all i needed today. that was the happiest moment of my day. and then there's a bunch of other little happy moments too, like when joel puts his hands on my shoulders while i'm sitting down, endearingly, or when the observors in the simulation room tell me how great my acting is, or when the one med student i did my first interview with asked me if the necklace i wore was an acting device and thought that was awesome when we ran into each other in the library staircase. or when we get the group convergence at the beginning of improv class.
my hair smells nasty. it's beginning to smell like the bus stop at civic center. basically i smell homeless up there. grimy.
i'm feeling fragile and grimy.
wanduffle