Lilly

One hour in my electromagnetism class: vector potentials and special relativity, solutions arising from the ether like Maxwellian magic. I take my second oral exam of the semester and spend the entire hour in fear of my impending failure, caught off guard by some of my professor’s questions. The little voice in the back of my head starts ticking off points to account for my mistakes, but I keep talking my way through problems, even when he has to guide me step-by-step to the answer. At the end he gives me full points and must see how startled I am because he says, “You were getting through the problems faster than I expected. I was asking you the extra questions.”

Seven hours agonizing over a sea of code that doesn’t work quite right. I learned a new programming language to write this simulation, and it’s so unfamiliar that my eyes glaze over as I read it through trying to debug. It takes me those seven consecutive hours, and another six, and maybe another two and another last one under the guidance of the professor before things click into place. We insert a few sparse characters into the code and set the planets on my screen revolving around each other in peaceful ellipses, moving as my intuition wants them to once more.

I do not know what to quit, or when to quit, or how to quit. It’s becoming harder to switch off. I still do, it just takes more—takes going to the gym where I can revolve around our tiny, ever-turning track like those planets do around their barycenter. Every week I sleep less and less until I notice what’s happening and correct it, forcing myself into bed before midnight for the first time in who knows how long. But I’m surviving. I eat enough, I take naps, I put away my laptop when a headache starts eating away at my temple. Sometimes that kind of seven-hour focus can be dangerous. I give myself breaks. I let myself think freely, stray away from my classwork, but I also know when to stop thinking altogether.

Three hours tutoring some of the kids in the intro physics classes. It’s a quiet night and only a few of them have come for help, minimal questions, mostly just looking for a place to work. “Lilly, do you know what you want to do with your degree?” one of them says out of the blue, looking up from his notebook.

I shrug. “Grad school is where I’ve always seen myself.”

“In physics?” he asks. “I’m trying to choose between a math and a physics major.” That’s right, he’s only a freshman.

“Be like Lilly, do both,” says the girl next to him jokingly.

We all laugh. “There’s no way I could have made up my mind,” I say, “but if I go to grad school, it’ll probably be in physics. I’d like to be a professor, I think. I like research, but I like teaching, too.” I look around at all of them. My kids, my unofficial classroom twice a week. I’ve watched them grow this semester, first-year students and graduating seniors alike, watched them get frustrated with their failures and celebrate their successes and bond with each other. A little tight-knit group of unlikely friends, complete with a group chat and their own brand of gossip. But they look back at me now and for a moment we’re all the same. Just a bunch of kids looking toward the future.

“I could see myself as a teacher,” says the guy who originally asked. And I can see it too. ♦