Lilly

It’s around 10 AM on the last day of 2016. I’m standing at the stove making breakfast when a wave of nausea hits me and I think, Oh come on, really? My stomach acts up in the mornings sometimes, especially if I didn’t eat much the day before, so I disregard it. But this doesn’t stay in my gut. I can almost physically feel the sensation traveling up through my chest, into my throat, settling between my eyes. The wooden spoon stills in the pot as I stand there, confused, my ears starting to ring.

I’m vaguely aware of a loud clatter and huffing out a breath when something hits my hip. A few seconds later, my vision starts coming back and I realize the thing that hit my hip was, in fact, the floor, and the clatter was dishes falling into the sink—I must have been reaching for something to stabilize myself. My hand reaches up to turn the stove off before I can even formulate a proper thought, my head still too fuzzy to register what just happened.

It’s a fluke. I do have a history of low blood pressure. Maybe I had my knees locked while I was standing. Once the shock wears off I start cracking jokes about how 2016 tried to get me with my guard down. My parents aren’t as receptive to the humor, but they start to relax when a full 24 hours goes by without a second episode. And here we are in the New Year. Not this time, 2016! (Or, well, ever.)

I can’t say I’m not happy to be rid of 2016. It was a tumultuous year for my mental health—maybe the worst it’s ever been in the summer and the best come winter—and an eventful year in which to come of age, at least by convention. I’ve become more reflective, fully embraced my intended field of study, and manufactured a much more outgoing personality that is still me. It’s funny, looking back and thinking about all the people who warned me about burnout and hating my field and how I needed to take my time, reflect, experiment in different studies, was I sure I would be happy in astronomy? In physics? In the sciences at all?!

I have an answer now. Yes. I’m happier than I ever imagined.

Over the summer I thought things would never get better, and when I wasn’t at work, hating every minute of it, I was lying in bed too tired and angry and depressed to do anything else, and I hated every minute of that too. This is it, I thought. I couldn’t even handle a job—how was I going to make it in college?

The difference is that when I got to college I was doing what I loved. Full time. Full stop. I resented weekends because I couldn’t be in class. I’d end up a week ahead in almost all my courses, constantly champing at the bit for new material. Why did people ever bother trying to dissuade me from doing this? I’d wonder, neck deep in physics homework. Was it because I was too young—having skipped a grade in middle school? Was it because I wasn’t the domineering personality people apparently associate with scientists? Was it because I was going to a small liberal arts college instead of a top 10 research university? Was it because I was a woman?

For any budding scholars who may be reading: Don’t listen. Consider their counsel, but not their commands. Do not allow yourself to be affected by their insinuations. You know yourself best.

I have no real New Year’s resolutions this year. In the past I always adhered to them: I want to run more! I want to do this or that! Not this time. If anything, in 2017 I want to be happy. I want to be brave and brilliant and outspoken. I want to learn as much as I can and how to teach it to others. I want to never have to settle. I want to stand my ground and engage fully and stop apologizing for having a voice.

Maybe my fainting spell was just a full-body reset for 2017. I’ll take it. The last vestiges of that year, that poisonous summer, finally gone. ♦