Today, I have found myself feeling both the pleasure and burden that comes with great epiphanies. It’s something similar to the discomfort that follows the next day after a deep tissue massage; you would think that since you are “fixing” the problem areas you would feel rejuvenated, even stronger when they have been manipulated and set into their right place, but instead it is painful. It hurts. It hurts in ways that make you wish you had just left the gnarled muscles and tendons as they were. It isn’t until later that you reap the benefits of the work you have done to your body, and the same seems to be said for this epiphany that has bestowed itself upon me.
It’s a seemingly simple adjustment, this new thought I have come across. I merely realized how pivotal, and absolutely necessary, it is to be cognitive; it is so utterly vital to never forget we each are living, and perceiving, life through our own personal lens. It is in the same moment that we must also be aware that when we are looking through our own lens, we can sometimes lose sight of how another person is doing (or viewing). My current emotional status is completely independent of yours, but at the same time it is interconnected and can be changed by your emotional status.
We find ourselves in this perpetual state of paradoxical “isolated interconnectedness” where we must endure in our own personal way, but can still permeate that boundary without even knowing it. It is at this point in my introspective process that I realize how much easier it would be to plea ignorance about this knowledge, but alas it has been called to my attention and must be addressed; the backbone of my being thus got the proverbial adjustment it needed. The most wonderful part of the whole thing is that the lesson was actually taught to me by someone completely unaware of the fact that they were doing so, thus strengthening the lesson itself that we effect others without even knowing it...
I already know for myself that when I am stressed out I tend to withdraw from loved ones; I break plans, and let my outward affection fall at the waist-side. I am currently sitting in a Starbucks as I write this piece, and I am here with my boyfriend of a year. We are sitting face to face at one of those tiny round tables most likely meant for only one person, but here we are nonetheless. Two laptops, two different coffee elixirs, two different hearts. I reach out my hand across the tiny overcrowded table and grab his wrist as he types up his essays for medical school applications. He looks up and says something along the lines of how he is happy I’m finally the one showing affection again. It isn’t an angry statement, it’s not even colored with a lecturing tone. Even so, my heart is saddened; it made me realize that while I am on my own side of the table stressing about my overdrawn bank accounts and the impending doom of being 22 and not having an exact career plan or medical school essays I need to write...I have been building walls around my heart. I must’ve forgotten that while I am stressing about my feelings of insignificance, he has been stressing about feeling insignificant TO ME. You see, we all operate in a crazy way; perceiving the current state around us and calculating how we feel about it, or what we need to do, but as we do this SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.
After this exceptionally brief exchange, I went and sat next to my person and gave him a big hug; we embraced for a long time. Two solo entities, completely different thoughts and emotions, yet still connected and effected by each other. Broken and mended by ourselves and others. I am reawakened again, on this day, by the awesome power that we each hold to share love and how it knows no boundaries. I am here today to remind you not to get lost within yourself.
This journal reflection makes me very interested to see what sort of material you'll create when we get to the playwright phase of our course. You're definitely in touch with your inner-monologue, and that's a good tool to use as a playwright.
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