This is what Friends are For

The last two weeks have been more of the same. By that I mean, I have been crushed and beaten and despite my efforts to be a good person, I have failed. Despite this, I have really validated some of things I learned about myself over the last year and have come to new revelations about myself. It is very difficult to express grief (I feel offended by anyone who describes it as angst). I have also reached the point where I refuse to let myself wallow, because honestly that is what I have been doing. I have allowed myself to take joy in grief, particularly twisted satisfaction in the form of self perceived martyrdom.

The week before last was homecoming. I have my own reservations about the nature of homecoming and particularly the way my university practically forces everyone to participate through the strict homecoming competition. Even with my reservations about the meaning behind such activity, I do generally enjoy the opportunity to work towards something and I think by now, most of you know how competitive I am. It was probably during the practices for homecoming that I realized how vital it is for me to have a creative outlet. We were practicing our song and dance for competition and the activity, the theatrics of the event sent me into a creative high of un-abandoned joy though perhaps a bit chaotically. The opportunity to be theatrical, to improv, and creatively express myself had been so stifled since my return. Without regularly role playing (or GMing), I was missing a piece of myself and it was very clear that this was a major component to my unhappiness. To some degree, this realization spurred my seeking alternatives, and I have, though tenuously, found a group of people to role play with again.

Another problem with homecoming for me is how it affects my health. A good majority of homecoming requires screaming and cheering as loud as possible (in order to win the competition). I suffer from migraines on occasion. Migraines for me are triggered through exertion of my voice and result in aberrations of my vision followed by a painful headache (enough to knock me out of doing anything), and if I remain conscious, regional numbness and tingling. Even if I take the maximum dose of ibuprofen, I still get a headache. Not to mention, the next day, I am usually scattered and suffer from secondary lack of focus and mental fortitude. I avoid migraines as much as possible and have even become attune to notice when I am approaching the point of no return for them. Every year that I have participated in homecoming, I have gotten a migraine. Of course, this year was no different. This was not made better by my required participation. It makes me feel awful to let down the members of my sorority. I want to be able to participate, but I am always hesitant and it is not often understood my need to step back to avoid disaster.  

So homecoming was busy and emotionally draining. Fortunately that weekend I was able for the first time in two weeks to hang out with friends. I felt revitalized (well perhaps not physically, yay parties). Friendship is all I need to sustain me. For the first time in weeks, I actually felt a considerable amount of peace and happiness, even when everything else in my life was a reminder that nothing had really changed.

This last week has been far less eventful, but still a reminder that I’m not through the woods yet. There is a degree of distance that I have undergone. The emotions are less intense, but I will admit that this has left me wistful. A reminder about the impermanence of everything. I will admit that this has brought on a considerable bought of nostalgia. As I mark the one year mark from when I left Oxford, the ability to visualize that time has become so clear. Though the feelings and emotions associated are held at a distance with the bittersweet mark of nostalgia.

One of the classes that I am taking, and I don’t think I’ve complained about on this blog, is my Critical Thought and Inquiry capstone (for non-Jewell people this just means final course in the core curriculum). It is a class which focuses on the relationship between Plague Piety and Public Policy. Now you might be saying, “Kayla, didn’t you pretty must take this class in Oxford through your human growth and development epidemiology course?” and the answer would be yes. Yes I did. I could teach this class most days. Yet another example of the frustrations I am having with this year. But ignoring that fun little tidbit about my life, the reason I bring it up is to talk about one of the books we are reading in it. Camus’s Plague does perhaps the best job capturing some of my emotional states over the last few months. In his book, he follows the narrative of town in Algeria as it is hit by a plague and enters a quarantine. In particular, his writing in the first part of act 2 is particularly poignant. At this point in the story, the town has shut down its boarders suddenly and without warning for most of its people. This has left a number of people trapped inside the town and a number of people trapped outside. He spends most of this first section discussing the feelings of separation that the people within the quarantine zone suffered. The following are quotes that I think capture the many moments and frustrations that I felt I faced and thus felt great empathy for.

 “It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile --- that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire” (Camus 71).

“Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet” (Camus 72).

 “Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in the company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savor only of regret.” (Camus 73).

 “Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men’s justice or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars” (Camus 73).

“’But, damn it, Doctor, can’t you see it’s a matter of common human feeling? Or don’t you realize what this sort of separation means to people who are fond of each other?’
Rieux was silent for a moment, then said he understood it perfectly. He wished nothing better than that Rambert should be allowed to return to his wife and that all who loved on another and were parted should come together again…
‘No,’ Rambert said bitterly, ‘you can’t understand. You’re using the language of reason, not of the heart; you live in a world of abstractions.’
 The doctor glanced up at the statue of the Republic, then said he did not know if he was using the language of reason, but he knew he was using the language of the facts as everybody could see them---which wasn’t necessarily the same thing” (Camus 87).

"Abstraction for him was all that stood in the way of his happiness. Indeed, Rieux had to admit the journalist was right, in one sense. But he knew, too, that abstraction sometimes proves itself stronger than happiness; and then, if only then, it has to be taken into account" (Camus 91)

So, hopefully his words can better express the way I have been feeling. I hate to have to defer to the words of another to express myself, but I was struck by the skill that these passages had at capturing those feelings.  But once again, I foresee your comment. You say, “but Kayla, you are not in a quarantine. You are not physically prevented from going places. Probably most all, you are not faced with death and loss in the same way as the people in this book faced them. Surely your emotions could not hold the same strength.”

To that I say, I think they do. The quarantine is not imposed by the government, it does not result in physical death and the people I know and care about are still within touch via Skype and many other means of communication which makes my position all the more privileged. However, the internet does not contain the same reality as real life and is subject to a number of conditions that aren’t necessarily always true. In particular, does the other person have technology capable of communication, do you or the other person have internet. Images can not replace physical presence. I am not free to go anywhere. I am restricted by convenience. Limited by what is inconvenient. And the more I am absent in those people’s lives, the more they diminish in significance and reality as I do for them. Perhaps we are all quarantined in such ways, but the situation is made painfully apparent to me through this abrupt transition. I am struck each time by how much my life in Oxford feels like a fantasy. My travels must have happened in my imagination, because the memory is no more real than television. That is what is most painful. Reading this passage of Camus’s book nearly brought me to tears as I found myself face to face with my own reality.

All this being said, the only way to move forward is positively. I have to keep trying to make things better and I have to keep fighting the oppressive feeling of exile. I have learned that I don’t advocate for myself when I am suffering. I am more inclined to value the suffering of another over my own. I will trap myself into complaining about my own suffering but not doing anything about it.  It is self-centered in a way that is self-gratifying and I need to make changes. So I am trying, one day at a time. For now though, I may dwell in some nostalgia, but only for a moment.

Source: Camus, Albert. The Plague. New York: Modern Library, 1948. Print.