Words fall through me,
and always fool me,
and I can't react.
- Glen Hansard
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"I've never heard of anyone getting stressed out over cells before. But hang in there, and keep smiling!"
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One day, you're told that you can go anywhere. You can do anything in the entire world, anything that you want, as long as you work hard and do good in the world.
The next minute, you're wondering if you're cut out for this life at all. The moment that I decided to put my eggs in that basket, now I'm wondering if I'm capable of it. I don't know if I can handle it, if I can keep up with it. In this moment, with my heart still raw from the wounds of failure, still full of adrenaline and disappointment, I'm feeling worthless. I'm sure that it's fleeting, god please tell me that it's fleeting, but I feel incapable of anything worth trying for.
"I apologize. I just didn't want you to think I was an inadequate undergrad. I apologize. I should've been able to keep up with the workload."
"Oh, honey... We all want to be the perfect reseacher, but we can't. No one can. We're only human."
I'm realizing now... that was probably the most I have ever cried since the beginning of summer, including the entire separation with Phuc. For some reason, there was so much of my heart riding on those strands of RNA, that when I failed them, it broke my heart far more than any boy ever has.
Because today, after weeks of barely getting enough time to breathe, I learned just how enormous are the expectations of me. There are months of labor riding on my shoulders. There are tens of thousands of dollars of reagents and cells, there is the success of a paper and the progress of an entire project, there is a man's career, all resting on my shoulders. So I have to do these four experiments today, two experiments tomorrow in one hour, five experiments the next day in two hours, and then twenty other experiments on my own time? So I have to learn this new technique on the day before my midterm, and if I miss that day or if I can't learn it in one day, then we have to cancel a month of experiments?
It just got so overwhelming, and I just broke down in the spectrophotometer room. It was just so much to handle at once. It was just so much pressure, and I caved. I was just sobbing in front of the spectrophotometer, when my post-doc came back and found me crying, with my gloved hand shaking as it clenched desperately to my pipette, and my other hand struggling to close my test tube of RNA sample.
"Christa, it's okay. You can stop."
"No, please let me finish this protocol. I can do it. I can do this protocol, I can finish it. I can do it. Please let me finish."
I just got so overwhelmed. It makes me get cold feet. Can I really do this? Am I really cut out for this? Am I not as amazing as I thought I was? Am I being foolish to shoot so high? To shoot for extraordinary?
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"Christa, do me a favor. Take a coffee for an hour, and promise me you will not study, okay? One hour break, no studying allowed, okay? No work, just relaxing. Promise?"
Time lapse. I'm realizing just how sad and pathetic I sounded, poor thing! I've vented to people who have been very supportive and positive, and I've managed to get some time for recovery. During that time, I looked into my past to drive me.
If I've looked at the times that I've achieved success, it's pretty evident which attitudes pushed me on the right path, and which left me rotting in a hole. And I realize that these are not moments to coddle my self-pity and to curl up in a hole. I'm bummed out still, and I'm still so afraid, but these are not moments to nourish my sorrows and fears. These are moments to bounce back, except even higher. To do even better next time. To efficiently handle the stress and exhaustion next time. To not be too proud. Challenge accepted.
Because even if I can't do this, god knows that I will fall trying. Even if I'm really not cut out for this, I'm not going to give up on trying to fit in this puzzle. Even if I'm not as amazing as I thought I was, there is still no reason to be any less than the best that I can be.
And so help me, if I fall, I'll fall trying to reach the stars.
Pace yourself from now on, poor girl. Get your head in the game. You can do this. ... I can do this. Or at least, after what happened today, I will keep telling myself that, over and over again, until I finally believe it.
I can do this.