I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
(The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus)
on some days, like yesterday, i’ll wake up in the morning and feel hollow, like someone had shoveled me from the inside out. like someone had scratched off all the labels. what’s important, what’s not. i study the ceiling, blank chalk, not knowing what i care about, why i should get up, why i loved anything, or anyone. not knowing if i was tired or shattered.
not knowing why i was alive.
telling myself all the rational things because it wasn’t the first time.
watching my citadel crumble, because it wasn’t the first time.
the first time i fell in love, i was 4. i was at the library. kids’ astronomy books, legs criss-cross on the ground. head above the clouds, on planets, stars, galaxies. eyes, hungry, looking through the eyes of satellites. satellites which embarked decades ago, leaving the solar system; i, wanting to chase after them.
You once told me that the human eye is god’s loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn’t even know there’s another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.
(On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong)
falling in love again under the stars. and again, and again. the people i’m with change but i never do. red light for dark adaptation, lighting up my face and a star map. my face, not looking down.
the darkness pulling me away, pulling me up to a sky i knew better than my self. the universe passing through my soul.
the earth, melting away. the sky holding its lonely, lonely creation.
look up. look.
the first time i fell in love with someone, i was 14. the second, i was 15. 16, 17, 18. it was so easy for me to love because i needed it. different reasons each time. jealousy in the guise of admiration. feeling like i was wanted. feeling like i could be an addiction. feeling like i could be ordinary, loved. like everyone else.
my heart jumping to different places as i try to chain it down. falling out of love like a trampoline. forgetting all the different reasons, because there was really only one.
but then, i was 19. and i was out of high school. i still remember the night when i told you those three words for the first time. feeling it within my core like soft tissue, like i was falling in love again, a year after meeting you. falling in love like a trampoline, but it was still you.
promising we would go stargazing, but we never did.
we don’t talk anymore. but that’s okay. i’m 21, now. there are lots of people, not you, that i live for. even myself. for them i wield those words you gave me–i love you.
gender euphoria with a pink skirt. gender euphoria with boy shorts. hair up, hair down; black hair, red hair. eyeshadow, scrubbed off on toilet paper. frustration. another stab at it. eyeliner long enough to cut like a diamond. glitter to highlight the corners of my eyes. my eyes that sparkled like stars–because i looked in the mirror and i loved her–me.
going to the gym. going through the motions: bicep curl, dumbbell squat, machine fly. full body, no split. webtoons in between sets. leaving without feeling the weight on my body. leaving with just a little bit of weight off my chest.
J showing me how to squat for the first time, the bar digging into my shoulders. the girl at the squat rack over correcting my form. then, putting five pounds on each side, beaming–i could do more than the bar.
going to the gym. struggling to heave the forty-five pound plate onto the bar. short deep breaths, adrenaline. texting V—i just squatted a plate! waddling out with the weight in my legs, my heart beating out to the sky. i’m so proud of you.
knowing that i have strength. knowing that i have the right—the strength—to hunger.
to go home, on an airplane. to step inside a vessel and exit it, three thousand miles farther from you. to relive a life of weeks, months, years ago, sorting through camera roll albums and re-reading old journals. i forgot to download something to do again. or maybe, reliving is what i wanted, locked in a box high above life.
to smile at us, our photos, our first date, our first friend date. boundaries erected, then lines blurred. the person i was when i met you. the person you were when you met me. fractured, red, confused—not anymore.
before i take off you message me, text me if you land! i’m grinning. how lucky i am–to laugh, belly to ear, three thousand miles away from you.
if home is a person, then i think i was leaving.
doubt. doubt is something that creeps in like termites, swallowing you, your home, everything you’ve built from the inside out. and you don’t even know, until the first plank falls.
everything crumbling until there’s nothing left.
for a while, there was nothing left. you were hollow, at 16. how many times did you open university physics and snap? because you would never be as good as S, good enough for S, the boy you loved at 14. or any of them. maybe you didn’t want to be tokenized. you didn’t want to speak for an entire gender when you failed. but that was inside you too. your misogyny. your doubt, like termites.
you, crushed by the weight of not having the strength to love what you loved at 4. you, filling yourself with fiction and watered love. you, drowning, still hollow.
when did you stop? maybe it was around when you met A; she was just like you, when you were 17. and you started rebuilding, one brick at a time. then COVID happened. you turned 18. you started over. you took a gap year and you spent it thinking. stronger foundations, confidence. 19. your freshman year at mit happens. it’s not S, it’s someone else–but really, it’s just you, still you, again. you’re hollow again. you start over again. 20. you declare course 8. you find a UROP that you like. you rebuild, again and again.
i turn 21. i publish my first paper in The Astrophysical Journal. i study the ceiling, blank chalk, looking for termites.
watching my citadel crumble, because it wasn’t the first time. the bigger they are, the harder they fall—and yet, a castle built once is easier to build again.
learning that it’s never easy, to see everything i’ve built up disappear. to drift blankly, becalmed, knowing nothing. then, pulling my shit together. learning what i need to fix. fixing the external problems. fixing me.
learning that it’s never one thing. that it’ll never be one thing. because i’ve chosen a life for myself—my self which is never static, at best quietly tense, always on the verge. surges of anxiety. waves of panic telling me to run run run towards the future. reminders that i don’t want to stay stagnant. evidence that i’m still alive, still hungry. still real.
learning that it’ll never be easy. but also, learning that it gets easier. learning that there is joy in change, in putting myself back together again, piece by piece. in knowing myself, piece by piece, from the inside out.
learning those lessons, again and again, on days like yesterday.