Carry On.

The beginning of summer welcomed me with my first real job.  Although I have been working in my lab since June 2012, my boss wanted to pay me to work forty hours a week for the summer.  This was all pretty exciting and overwhelming but as I got into the swing of things, I rather enjoyed the different kinds of freedom that come with a job (and not with school).  A couple of weeks into summer, an employee announced that she was not returning to the lab.  The announcement was poorly timed as this marked the second valuable person to leave the lab within a month, leaving much of the responsibility unexpectedly in the hands of my grad student and myself.  While my grad student undertook more of the technical responsibilities that come with a lab, I tackled the day-to-day maintenance and management.  Feeling like a child, I meekly tried to swallow the new responsibilities.

As the days went by, I found myself proud of how far I had come and proud of the work I had accomplished.  I was scheduling people, organizing pieces, fixing problems and making everything run as smoothly as possible.  Lab became a challenge and I wanted to surprise people with the way I handled myself.  However, as the summer months flew by I felt like my efforts were going unnoticed.  I wondered if anyone knew how difficult my job was when it wasn't even really my job.  I began to feel disgruntled-- the same feeling that overwhelmed me last year when my experiment was unsuccessful.  This is all to say the novelty and challenge wore off and I was merely fulfilling my responsibility until I could pass the job along to the new girl.

But today, the past sixteen months became worth it.  I stopped by my boss's office to check in after a brief (and absolutely wonderful) weekend at home.  As we were going over the agenda for the month, he stopped.  He said thank you.  He said he wanted me to know how much he appreciated me going above and beyond what my undergraduate status required me to do.  Someone really noticed.

This sincere appreciation came from a man who rarely gives compliments.  When he does, it means something.  I swear the nicest thing he had said to me previously was along the lines of, "once in awhile you get an undergrad that is slightly more competent than the others; one that you can trust with more responsibility, kind of like you" -- slightly more competent.  So this moment spread light like a flashlight in a power outage on all of the days that I had felt unappreciated and alone.  All of the mornings, nights and weekends I worked for the sake of the lab became instantly worth it.  Not to go all crazy but I'm just short of restoring my faith in humanity.  Notice how I said "just short", thus retaining an ounce of sanity.  Better luck next time, humanity.

"Well, I woke to the sound of silence, The cries were cutting like knives in a fist fight... We are who we are, On our darkest day, When we're miles away, So we'll come, We will find our way home"

High Tide

Maybe it was the heat.  Maybe it was the stress of real workweeks.  Maybe it was a big deal, maybe it wasn’t.  With last month’s heat wave came a wave of stupid fights for Mike and me.  Our relationship has seen it’s share of real issues but these fights were far from anything of substance.  All of the little things finally culminated in a moment of realization for us both.  Summer brings about a whole new set of challenges for individuals, especially those who begin working at their first real job.  The world of school is enough to usually keep your insecurities and fears at bay but with a 9-5 job, you are left with evenings relatively free yet exhaustion keeps you close to home.  Those first few weeks I felt the need to grow up and to do it fast.  I won’t speak for Mike but maybe he felt the same way.

Instead of appreciating each other’s constancy and comfort, we made some poor decisions.  We took out our frustration and exhaustion on the person whom we knew we could.   In that moment we took each other for granted.  But it was also a moment of pure honesty and beneath that, an unexpected relief.  It was not a situation that was too far gone, thankfully it was perfectly timed where we were both ready to modify our actions.  Since then all of the little fights dissipated and so much less has been taken for granted.

This situation hit me with perspective just recently.  Life is rarely predictable.  Some people relish in this fact and others are less comfortable (take a wild guess which category this hero and heroine of this story fall into).  Either way, changes happen and the way we deal with those changes make us who we are.  Often people deal by hurting those they love the most instead of treasuring those relationships.  I know this idea isn’t groundbreaking, but it was for me.  And seeing how relatively easy it was to correct has been greatly comforting.  I don’t want to tag this post as “life lesson #_”.  Rather I like to think of this episode as if life was a 6'7" man weighing 300 pounds (think Las Vegas bouncer), and he picked me up by the shoulders and shook me (dare I say "us"?) into clarity.  Tough love but good love.

“The world is spinning turning day to night, And my thoughts are running at the speed of light, Got an empty feeling that I never wanna fill”

2974

The number of people who lost their lives 11 years ago.

I read an article today about a widow who received a piece of paper.  The paper was written by her husband who was trapped on the twenty-second floor after the second plane hit.  The handwriting was harsh, in the mere seven words describing their location and number of people trapped, you could feel fear.  The note was found in the rubble and handwriting later matched (in addition to a blood sample on the paper) and finally presented to the widow.  It seemed like a blessing and a curse for her, as she had prayed that he had not suffered and been trapped.  Her last loving hope for her husband was that he had a quick and painless death since the second plane hit merely feet away from his floor.  When given this note, I can only imagine she felt as if her prayer fell on deaf ears.

I wonder how many people feel this way, even eleven years later.  How many thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, know someone who died?  How many people are intimately connected with this day?  How many people feel like their prayers didn't count?

The heartbreaking reality sunk deep into my thoughts.  We will never know the reason for the injustice of kids growing up without parents, spouses living without their soulmate, daughters walking down the aisle without their fathers.  We are left with the harrowing realization that prayers aren't always answered the way we see best and the old adage "reason for everything" can sting unlike any other.  So, on this day, I remember.  I am thankful for those who have sacrificed and those who continue to sacrifice.  I am thankful for the families that have shown strength far beyond what could ever be expected.  Finally, I pray those 2,974 souls rest in peace and that their families receive rest on this day and all days.

In loving memory.