High Levels of Ds (Disappointment)
the blood test that reveals the psyche, the self, and her dreams
It took me a week to feel like myself again. A full week to notice my appetite, what drinks and snacks I asked for, what temperatures I tended to dress up at, what decisions I decided upon and at which elapsed minute I gave in and moved on, etc. For what felt like my life was not entirely so, and I had to remind myself that, last I checked, I understood it to be September— it was now December.
What elapsed was the most arduous season that I have ever experienced. (The cause is the semester, but I personally refuse to call periods of my life according to something other than the climate, perhaps out of an attempt to retain control as an earthly being no matter my profession, although it is a futile insistence that no one tracks except myself.)
Officially, I am at the 50% point of my three-year Master's degree in landscape architecture. It had been my dream program, profession, and discipline for 7 full years prior. And after hearing all the horror stories of architecture school, and firms, and projects, and expectations, the all-nighters, and the overtimes, and the redoing and reworking to be shot down in a crit, where at least you had your romanticized passion and dedication for the field that was as much art as it was science and you, yourself, were the realized Renaissance (Wo)Man of the 21st-century, I was waiting for my moment of ultimate sacrifice, creation, and resurrection. Well, I received it at last this semester season, but what had been most difficult was, surprisingly, remembering that I remained as myself.
In the week that elapsed, I rediscovered the sound of my voice in my head: she is a low but enunciated hum that holds direct strings to my heart. Whatever she says, my heart feels and immediately. The sound barrier breaks only when my mind understands, but the emotion moves faster than anything I know and I am already carried with the internal lullaby and its song. I noticed that I often have this monologue on repeat, a broken record of sorts, that lists expectation after expectation of me. I do not follow the instructions but I do hear the signs of disappointment. As I continue to brush my teeth, heat the kettle on the stove, wear my sweater, and lock the door, the hum drops leaving disappointment in its place. I begin my day like this.
Now, my words do sound quite melodramatic, and they definitely have that ancestrally, but I can illustrate this feeling with a true story.
//
Midway through this week of recollection, I had an appointment at the school clinic for a blood test. Now this was a great tactic, in hindsight, for the existence of a scheduled task warmed my accustomed restless and task-full habits while promising a quick relief of accomplishment (not disappointment) for the remainder of the day. I was looking forward to this appointment, and had planned to go to a nearby café afterwards to read and perhaps write something like this for my Substack. I was feeling optimistic.
In the waiting room, I rehearsed my lines: "I'd like to have my blood test done" — "No health issues, no allergies, just an annual reference for myself" — "B12, D, Iron, and Cholesterol, please." Led to Room #1, I took my place on the chair, naturally tearing the paper film that I have been tearing ever since I began seating myself, instead of being placed down as you would a child. I was asked about my last routine checkup ("Oh, it has been a couple years... 3? or 5?") and my family doctor ("No, no family doctor" and what a concept of there being a family doctor if you, yourself, are an individual now nationally separated by all members of your nuclear family— where would the doctor be based?). Anyway, I spoke my rehearsed lines and the nurse prepared the work order. A technician came in with her handheld caddy (identical to the plastic shower caddies freshmen purchase as initiation for their new dorm lifestyle) and pulled out 6 vials and set them on the table.
Let it be known that I can handle blood. I like to prove the point to myself by watching the entire procedure take place on my own arm, and even feel the butterflies turn to waves to tornadoes in my stomach reminding myself that "I can handle blood." But I have never seen 6 vials on the metal tray waiting for me, my blood, the historically low-iron but not anemic blood, to be retrieved and contained. I can control a butterfly that becomes a wave that becomes a tornado, but I cannot contain 6 butterflies that become 6 waves that become 6 tornadoes, and so I looked towards the ceiling and mumbled responses to the nurse's questions ("Any holiday plans?" "Home to the family?" "How did your crits go?") refusing to imagine, what felt like, 600mL of blood being drawn from me.
"Hey, are you okay?" "Can you hear me?" "All ok?" ... "Rasha?"
My socks were rolled down, my left shoe (those damned French gardening shoes) falling off, my forehead wiped, my glasses fogging, and tears, tears, rolling down the shortest route off my cheek laid down. What I remember thinking was just how accurately the movies depicted these scenes and just how grateful I was for the four dark masses hovering inside my waking eyelids. The dark mass to my left was rubbing my hand and the dark mass to my right was dabbing my eyes. And in this comfort I began to sob, for they had just woken a faint girl from her mere-minute spell, while I had just been resurrected from a scene of people, those that I love most in this life, telling me how much I have disappointed them and how I could do nothing to stop it.
//
In this week of recollection, I discovered paths I take, consciously and not, that lead me to a variety of places, good and bad. One of these paths is what I've written above where I've noticed footprints that start innocently before walking too far towards expectations and inevitable failure. Disappointment, I've come to discover, is a lump in my throat that stops me from doing many things, for better or for worse. It is the lack of doing what was expected but doing something worse or, worse than worse, nothing.
What this season has shown me is that disappointment is an inevitable by-product of my current version of self. If my self is narrated by that hum of an internal monologue dreaming of things beyond my reach, then the distance between those dreams and my reality will always be explained as proof of inferiority. What this does is ignore the historical progression of my path by focusing only on comparison. In other words, I am always inferior to the dream image of myself no matter how far I've progressed along the path towards that dream.
My 7 years of dreaming to get to this point of my life has been a miraculous gift. I have been given the thing I promised would be "my last wish ever in my life!" believing that this was the last stop of Maslow's tour en route to self-actualization. In reality, one moves towards the horizon believing it as a place to reach, and not a condition that is, by definition, out of reach. Just like a child might wish for the day she would be "all grown up," I was waiting for the moment that had been passing by around me this whole time. How do I feel? Not much differently, actually. It seems like I've remained as myself.
As such, this week of recollection has morphed into one of reckoning: who am I when my day's work is done, my front door closed, and my face washed bare and left clear for none to see? I'm realizing that in this season of ill-maintenance where I was a secondary character to my day's work, I neglected enough of myself to rid it of personality almost entirely. I stopped reading books for I had no time to, I stopped writing for I had nothing to write about, my morning thoughts were of my to-do lists, my accomplishments were of having my work be clean or completed or progressing or whatever it might be. I stopped going to the gym, I stopped texting friends until it was 3 weeks too late. Essentially, I felt as a shell fuelled only by the adrenaline of work, and during any spare time I would either mentally exhaust myself over some strategy of work or fall hollow with no script of interest to follow with next. If this is the life I was dreaming of for years, I surely forgot to imagine how I, myself, might grow within that dream, too.
//
I write this now sitting in the Athenæum at the same balcony desk I sat at yesterday evening. Among walls of books peak windows of College Hill that is blanketed in the season's first proper snowfall. I bring myself here because it is so strongly steeped in that vivid essence of dreams that makes everything feel real. Here, I am able to parse through my thoughts and see what is true and what is not. What is real is the low but enunciated hum that writes these thoughts, and not the thoughts themselves. It is the purpose of the feelings and not the feelings themselves. How do I know this is the truth? Because I'm starting to feel like myself again.