this train's been derailed, but at least there's cacti in the desert

Well hello there. 

Yes, I am in fact alive, despite my inactivity on this blog. If there were ever an award for worst blogger of the year, it would probably go to me. I don’t know how many people are even interested in what I have to say on here, or how many people really follow my story, but for those who are and who do, I apologize for holding you in such terrifying suspense. I assure you though, there is good reason. There has been so much to happen, so much happening, that I can’t even process any of it myself in a way that is communicable on a blog, until now. So where did we leave off? Ah, that’s right. I was just about to take the MCAT. Well, as fate would have it, I am yet again 3 days from taking the MCAT. 

As you are reading this, you are probably speculating as to what happened between then and now that placed me back where I started. Well for starters, the MCAT didn’t go so hot. The application cycle didn’t go well either as a result of that. There was a long winter and spring of rejection and a false sense of hope. The letters and emails trickled in with the same set of words, “I regret to inform you,” “..at this time we are unable to..” By the fourth notification, I simply laughed. What else was I to do? Cry? By then I had run out of tears. The spring presented a twist of fate when I was placed back in an application pile and granted an interview to the school I really wanted, but that was merely a pipe dream. It all came down two that two digit number. All of my extracurriculars provided great discussion points for the interview, which went well in my opinion. I really liked my interviewers and had a nice time talking with them, but the admissions committee wasn’t convinced I had what it takes. I was placed on the bottom of an alternate list comprised of over 200 other individuals, only 60 of which obtain a spot. I learned this on the day I graduated. Talk about a buzz kill. But that’s not all that happened this year. Turns out, I’m quite fantastic at painting. I joined a new research project, met some really great new people, and I might be going to Boston in October to present said research at a national conference. Things are looking up, or they were, at least for awhile. Perhaps they still are and I just can’t see it at the moment. 

No one really tells you how hard it is to be in your twenties. As a teenager, I always longed to be in my twenties. I wanted to get away from the ages that ended in “teen” and just be a solid number. Turning twenty was literally the best thing ever. Twenty-one even more so because I could walk into a liquor store without being nervous. Then I realized, “Hey... what comes next?” Well, other than some arbitrary ability to rent property or a vehicle, each passing year is just a reminder that you’re getting old. When I turned twenty-two, my entire perspective about life changed. I became aware of the impermanence of it, the shortness of it. I wanted everything to just stop, and I still do. I wish I could pause for a moment and just live. I think John Mayer really captured this feeling in his song “Stop This Train.” In it, he is comparing life to a train that he wishes would stop, commenting on how it’s moving faster than he could have ever hoped for, expressing the fear of losing your parents and having to fight life out on your own. Later he states how “once in a while when it’s good/ it’ll feel like it should/ and they’re all still around/ and you’re still safe and sound/ and you don’t miss a thing/ ‘til you cry when you’re driving away in the dark.” I think he’s spot on, at least in my mind, on what it feels like emotionally to be in your twenties. 

In addition to the emotional aspects of reaching this milestone, there are also the personal and professional aspects you have to contend with. We spend our entire undergraduate careers preparing for our post-graduate plans and futures, and so what do we do when those plans don’t immediately work out? This is something that I’m having to deal with at the moment. I’ve always been someone who plans excessively. I’ve always had it figured out where I was going and what it would take to get there. I’ve been pursuing my dream and thinking that it would work out, and suddenly I was told no. I feel like my life is John Mayer’s metaphorical train, except mine has been derailed and is continuing to slide full speed ahead. I’m currently trying again, obviously, since I’ve invested the last 10 years pursuing a dream that is at risk of being deferred. However, this doesn’t mean that I haven’t suddenly had my doubts. I ask myself whether or not I’ve made a huge mistake. Did I pick the wrong dream to follow? Is this a sign? Should I be doing something else with my life? Is there some other, better way I am supposed to make a contribution to the world and to mankind? Am I supposed to contribute anything at all? If things go wrong again, where do I go from there, from here? 

What I’ve learned at this point in my life is that things don’t always work out. Everyone says that everything happens for a reason, and I’m starting to believe that, despite my resistance. However, I think I’ve decided more so that I seem to lack control over anything that happens in my life. I watch everyone else who is continuing on with their professional schools, still on their train tracks, full speed ahead, and can’t help but feel like a hitchhiker left in the dust, watching  them disappear into the horizon. I feel static, stationary, suspended in time. I’m a cell stuck in a cell cycle checkpoint [for all you bio majors ;)]. Even the tumble weeds are moving. How do I get out of this? Can I get out of this? I mean, I suppose I can, but will it require me to find a new path? Do I get back on my tracks, or find some new ones? I think things will eventually work out for me, I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I can only have hope that they will. For now, I think I’ll just wander around in the desert wasteland searching for answers in the mirages that dance out of reach, listening for clues in the winds that constantly shift the restless sands of time. 

Wish me luck,

Alex