Captain's Log, Day 14: I Come Back

Date: May 2, 2020
Time of post: 7:35 AM
Quarantine Day: 48
Last Song I Listened To: “Don’t Let It Break YourHeart” by Louis Tomlinson
Last Person I Communicated With: Mikayla Sharpless
Last Thing I Ate: spaghetti earl gray tea
Last Thing I Read: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Current Mood: emotionally loaded
One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: I’m writing this at 6AM; I’ve literally done nothing; yesterday I did dishes and baked brownies
One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: vacuum; read for fun; write
One Reason I’m Stressed Today: so many decisions need to be made soon; goodbyes are coming
One Reason I’m Happy Today: Last night I found out that I won the Graduate Student Service Award!

Dear Apocalypsers,

It’s been nearly two weeks since my last entry. I think I needed time to recharge. Everything has been emotionally draining lately. I guess I didn’t realize how much isolation was taking out of me until schoolwork started to pick up, and then I was dealing with all my internalized stress and exhaustion plus end-of-semester schoolwork.

Repping my Ravenclaw pride back in 2016 before the
Cursed Child release party. 

I’m a massive Harry Potter fan, so I relate a lot of my life to the books and characters. That’s how I know, very firmly, that I’m a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff mix—a Ravenpuff, if you will. I’d be Sorted into Ravenclaw, though, because I really believe in those values for myself: wit, learning, creativity. Ravenclaws have a tendency for being perfectionists and bookworms and academics; they’re sometimes daydreamers; they’re usually creative in some way, and they’re usually pretty high achievers. That’s what I strive for in myself, but I have the heart of a Hufflepuff: loyalty and hard work and friendship and love and acceptance. Hufflepuffs love comfort food and keeping the peace and doing what’s right and making sure everyone is taken care of; they usually have a soft side and avoid conflict (unless it’s one of their loved ones being wronged). And that’s exactly what I try to put out into the universe.

My undergrad graduation photos even featured a
stack ofPotter books and my McGonagall wand! 

So my Hufflepuff heart hurts a lot right now. My Ravenclaw mind knew that quarantine would catch up with me eventually, and I think it finally did. That glass bowl shattered, and I did, too. Not that other people really noticed. Heck, I didn’t even really notice until the last 24 hours or so when I started to feel better. I definitely don’t feel great, but I know what I want to do to get back to a good place, and my inner-Ravenclaw loves being able to have a plan. If I have a plan, I can work with it. I can make it happen. 

I’ve been taking in a lot of creative projects over the last 12 days. I’ve been reading—books, blogs, fanfics—both for class and for fun. I’ve been listening to a lot of music (mostly Taylor Swift, but I’ve also branched out into some new-to-me artists like Maisie Peters), and I’ve been watching a lot of creative shows on streaming services. (Part of the reason I’m up right now is because I watched the first 5 episodes of Next in Fashion on Netflix.) Subconsciously, I was feeling so empty, so I think I needed to refuel with the things that bring me joy, and when I finally tried to fall asleep around 4AM, I felt the need to create, something I haven’t felt in weeks. That’s how I can tell that I’m getting into a better place. So I decide to write this post instead of tossing and turning in bed. At least this way I can check something off my list.

But I’d lying if I said I’ve been on a consistent, upward trajectory, because I haven’t. We’re all grieving right now, and grief isn’t a straight line, and, recently, I’ve been struggling with the prospect of my upcoming goodbyes.

I knew before I even moved to Kansas that I’d have to say goodbye sooner than I wanted to. I don’t think I’ve ever felt ready for a goodbye—not in high school, when I’d known some of my friends for over a decade; not in undergrad, when I’d known my closest friends for 4 years and had lived with them for 3—so I knew that 2 years wasn’t nearly enough time. I distinctly remember feeling like “it wasn’t worth it” to form close friends in grad school because we’d just go our separate ways and my heart would break.

I was very wrong…and very right.

It took me about a week to honestly decide that I loved my cohort, and I know now that I wouldn’t have made it this far in grad school without them. They have been my greatest support system, and I can’t thank them enough for all they’ve done for me. I don’t regret how fast and hard we fell for each other. But I was right that 2 years hasn’t been long enough and that my heart is already breaking.

This isn’t the ending we deserved.

But I’ve spent 24 years getting used to life’s vague disappointments. I should probably stop thinking perfect happily evers are possible, but my Hufflepuff heart just won’t accept that. I am an eternal optimist, and if I had to choose between this experience of COVD and heartbreak or never having met my cohort, I’d take our current timeline every single time.

There’s a quote in Cassandra Clare’s book Clockwork Princess (2013) that keeps me going through these times: "Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would as long as life was mortal. In every meeting, there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting, there was some of the joy of meeting as well” (507). Winnie the Pooh says it differently: “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” (And this may not even be an A.A. Milne quote, but that’s not relevant right now; the sentiment behind it is.)

In short, I have loved being in Kansas. I’ve made a home here. I’ve found a family. And I would stay longer if I could so I could take it all in and spend more time appreciating what I have, but I don’t know if that’s going to be possible. I might have to go back to Alabama. Don’t get me wrong; I love my biological family so much, but I feel like my hand s being forced here, and I hate being forced into something I don’t want to do.

I'm more than a little proud of this family we've created here.
 Here's us at the Department Holiday Party, December 13, 2019. 

Even during one of the most stressful and pivotal times of my life, though, it’s not nearly as stressful as what apocalyptic YA protagonists face, so I guess I should take the silver lining where I can get it. But one thing that my personal life and YA books do tend to share is an emphasis on chosen family. I grew up 16 hours away from my parents’ families—they’re from the same small town in Pennsylvania—and I only saw my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins once a year—maybe twice if I was lucky—so I made a lot of “family” in Alabama. It never really occurred to me that there was any difference between my parents’ best friends, my Uncle Frank and Aunt Elaine and Uncle Lon and Aunt Karen, and my parents’ siblings, Uncle Bob, Uncle Chuck, Aunt Nan, and Uncle Alan. We spent as much time with blood relatives as chosen ones, and they all loved me the same—so maybe I’m just predisposed to form lifelong bonds with people.

But we see Katniss do that, too. She and Peeta stay in touch with Annie even after Finnick dies and the war ends. They still talk to Haymitch. These are the people they went through literal hell with; that’s an unbreakable bond.

We see Jane and Katherine come together in Dread Nation, first as unwillingly allies and later as something near friendship (and that relationship continues to build into Deathless Divide, which I’m reading now). They protect each other; they help each other; they’re really starting to—gasp!—care about each other.

And then there’s Frenchie, in The Marrow Thieves. He starts referring to Miig, Minerva, Wab, Chi-Boy, Tree and Zheegwon, Slopper, and RiRi as family almost as soon as he meets them, and it’s a phrase that’s reiterated throughout the book.

I think all my emotions about grad school and chosen family are best summed up in two quotes from two of my favorite YA series:

1.  "Family isn’t blood. It’s the people who love you. The people who have your back”—Cassandra Clare City of Heavenly Fire (2014), pg. 111
2. “Time is making fools of us again” --J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) 

Reveling in the Dusty Bookshelf's Harry Potter-themed re-opening
 in April 2019, this time wearing by Beauxbatons girl outfit. 

There’s so much uncertainty right now, and that’s always been the hardest thing for my Ravenclaw mind to deal with. I hate not knowing more than I hate almost anything else—except maybe the dentist. It’s so hard to imagine how this situation will all play out. I don’t know if having these YA books helps me—because I can empathize with the love the characters have for their chosen families—or scares me—because, you know, death and destruction and war and revolution.

I really want the odds to be in our favor…just this once.

Katie






Bibliography:

Clare, Cassandra. City of Heavenly Fire. Simon & Schuster, 2014.


                 Clockwork Princess. Simon & Schuster, 2013.


Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. Scholastic, 2012.


Dimaline, Cherie. The Marrow Thieves. Dancing Cat Books, 2017.


Ireland, Justina. Dread Nation. HarperCollins, 2018.


Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Scholastic, 2005.