gerifran

[gerifran]

august come again

In April I wrote an essay called “wednesday.” and I thought that would be the last of it. It’s August now and I can’t recall the last four months. But if I woke up tomorrow and it was April, I’m not sure that August would come again. I have, perhaps subconsciously, fallen to the belief that my biggest fears each day inch closer to reality. I won’t graduate college or get married; I’m not even sure I’ll make it to 25.

At night I cycle through an arsenal of memories—the weaponry that built me and wounded me all the same. I struggle to remember much, but what I know is how it felt to share a room with a girl for three years only for her to not look my way at her graduation. I was seven. I remember my first panic attack when I was ten and the way animated characters made me nauseous when I was five. I remember being the academic standard in third grade and how my friends only existed from 8 to 3, August to May. I remember longing for attention while never daring to ask for anything. I liked the things my brother liked because it was convenient and I didn’t want to be bothersome. I can’t say for certain that I had an identity, then or now.

I’m almost 21 and I’ve failed many times over. In January I couldn’t eat, in February I couldn’t sleep through the night, and in March I cried every morning. Ultimately, I entered into a belief that none of it mattered because nobody saw it and nobody heard of it—at least not to its fullest extent. At risk of over-sharing, I must confess that in those months I wondered what I had to do to make it all a little more legitimate. On more occasions than I’d like to admit, all of this resulted in physical manifestations. Nothing that anyone heard was ever the full story. Any attempts to communicate were unsuccessful by some sort of self-inflicted paralysis. I tried to tell you, I really did. But I would go days without hearing the sound of my own voice and I was just so scared. How could I make such confessions when I couldn’t even say “hello”?

Perhaps the answer is this: lying atop all these feelings is that of overwhelming guilt. The guilt of knowing that the friends I do have will look back on what should be the best years of their lives and have to recall that some girl plagued them with her thoughts. She clung onto them in desperate attempts to preserve her own sanity—a whinging parasite—so callous and cruel. I’ve just been so mean. I ignore them on purpose, maybe so they’ll leave and we can both have reasons to hate each other. I know it’s wrong but I can’t say for sure that I regret it. Truthfully, I’m not certain it’s me in those moments. And if history really is cyclical, they’ll make their choice and leave now. I think one already did.

I think it’s really awful not to know why. And I don’t know why. I don’t know who destined me to have this life, or why. I don’t know who put this mind in this this body, or who decided that I’d never quite have a grasp on friendship, or why. Perhaps they held a vote, and I was democratically constructed. Or maybe I’m the product of a rogue senator who wanted to make a cruel joke. I don’t know, and I don’t know why.

What I do know, however, is that there will be other wednesdays in March and Mondays in August and girls who are awful to their friends and their loved ones. They will be the culmination of every rejection and every fear—real or perceived. They will be mean and they will be me.

How awful to have once been extraordinary, and now nothing at all.

[gerifran]

wednesday.

At some point in March I determined this existence was futile. Maybe not forever, but certainly for all I could fathom. I looked toward my desk at the little white bottles and I remembered the bridge on Gervais I’d walked across two weeks ago. I couldn’t help but wonder.

I wondered who would know first. I’m almost certain I know who would know last. I’m sure that people would care—or they would at least have to pretend to. But that’s not really the point, is it? Not when I can’t fathom tomorrow. Not when the morning feels too far away. Not when I’ve run out of things to look forward to, because I’ve run out of things to like. I didn’t need the attention, I needed things to love again.

I wondered who would get my things. My Chelsea sweatshirt for the converted fan; my favorite red bracelet for my best friend. Would they even want them? My mom loved the way I looked in Chelsea blue, and the bracelet was a gift from my grandmother. Maybe it’s best that she’d keep them.

I’d hoped the last person I talked to that day would know just how much I loved him, and there was nothing left to do. No it wasn’t his fault, but maybe 500 miles isn’t a healthy distance for friendship. And then again, maybe I’m not a healthy person for friendship. In any case, he’d get a glowing review if anyone asked—even if all I could give him on Wednesday was a bland, disguised goodbye.

The wonder was terrifying—the realization my mind could go places where I had minimal control and no one to blame. My biggest fear had come true and I wasn’t me anymore. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke for this exact reason. I don’t want to ever not be me, so why could my own brain take me there without any assistance?

I threw my phone across the room as I watched my mom’s contact picture display across the screen. Then my dad’s. Then my brother’s. And then I was angry. I’d seen two therapists that week and they both told me I needed more help. So why couldn’t it come sooner? What did I have to do for people for notice?

My brother chalked it up to “a little breakdown” and my dad insisted it was no big deal. My mom guilted me into believing I’d made her think she had been a terrible mother.

And yet nobody held me or told me it was okay. Sure, life goes on, but maybe that was the problem on Wednesday. Time passes—with or without you. For a few days I was acutely aware of the without. I went mute for a week as I sat and I wondered. My bout of mutism came with mixed reactions. I’ve been told I talk a lot. I’ve been told I talk too little. My brother understood. My mom told me to raise my voice; I simply shook my head “no.” That was enough for some time.

In the end I returned home and cried apologies to my cat. On Wednesday I wondered if only she would forgive me.

[gerifran]

[gerifran]

A Love Letter to Formula 1

F1 feels like home, and I love it like no other.

In particular, I find that Formula 1 has a unique ability to produce captivating stories about heartbreak, redemption, and glory—sometimes even all at once.

I’m not sure where my admiration for George came from. Perhaps it was our shared initials or a strict affinity for multiples of three. What I do know, though, is that his Formula 1 journey became one of my favorite stories in sports. I wrote my Common App essay about George because it was that serious. I forced college admissions officers to read about how I cried watching car 63 fall down the timing tower at 9 a.m. on a Sunday because that race changed my perspective on sports forever.

The 2020 Sahkir Grand Prix is nothing short of a captivating tale. I watched a man get the opportunity of a lifetime and lose it swiftly through no fault of his own. His misfortune would bring a victory that would change the trajectory of another man's career.

Everything in this sport is consequential and all of it is connected.

I’d never considered myself a competitive person, but in that moment I understood how people can put so much of themselves into a sport. I felt that team's loss like it was my own. I wanted the victory, I wanted the feeling, I wanted the story.

Of course, I don’t believe that this love is simple. There are many times when Formula 1 has angered me beyond belief—times when I’ve had to reconcile that maybe the sport I love is not one that can love me back.

What do you do with a sport that discourages—and actively censors—athlete activism? One that often fails to hold its most successful athlete in high regard?

I grieved the loss of Lewis Hamilton's eighth world title like it was me who had been cheated. I could not fathom losing something that was so certainly yours, much less to lose it through the admitted fault and negligence of an authority. Two years on, I still think of this as a moment that fiercely challenged my love for the sport.

I often joke that F1 is a billionaire’s playground, and frankly that is entirely true. You don’t have to be wealthy to become an F1 driver, but you sure as hell better know someone who is. I can't help but wonder how much more wonderful this sport could be if it wasn't so inaccessible. I wonder if we'd have full-time female drivers or more people of color. I wonder if I'd be able to see somebody who looks like me and grew up like me.

Yet despite all its faults, I’ve attached so much of my being to this sport. At a time when my world stood still, I turned to F1; not just as a source of entertainment, but rather a motive and a purpose. It became a reason to get through the week. I know I can survive this week because on Saturday and Sunday I'm going to watch F1. For about 20 weekends out of the year, I get to watch a new story and then I get to tell people about it.

I am intensely passionate about F1, and I could talk about it to anyone willing to listen and especially those who are not; I know its stories and I want everyone else to know them too. At their core, stories born from sports are about human persistence and man’s ability to pour heart and soul into a craft. Etched into Michael Schumacher’s final race helmet are the words, “Life is about passions. Thank you for sharing mine.” And Michael is never wrong.

What I love so much about Formula 1 is that it’s mine.

Nothing else ever has been.

[gerifran]

it’s no big deal.

Very few recent pictures of me exist and that is entirely on purpose. I don’t have pictures of my high school graduation. I didn’t go to prom. I had no senior trip. I didn’t let my mom buy or even look at my senior portrait. Truthfully, I can’t say that I have much memory of this time at all—and maybe I don’t want to.

I turned twenty and I couldn’t mourn my teenage years. I quite literally had nothing to lose. I haven’t celebrated my birthday since I was thirteen. I haven’t been to a birthday party since I was fifteen. I haven’t worn a dress since I was eighteen. I spoke two languages by the time I was four and I never quite got over my fear of two-dimensional animation and talking books.

I graduated high school in a dissociative daze, on an empty stomach, and on the verge of heat exhaustion—knowing my father was mad at me. I came to college and learned how to give myself bruises and cry quietly.

In college I learned quickly that there was something I hadn’t learned at all—friendship and loss and loss of friendship.

I realized early on that I don’t quite understand the constructs of friendship. I know that I’ve had people around me my whole life, and at some point I even believed I had a lot of friends. Yet, I sit in my room, alone, with the conscious knowledge that I haven’t seen my friends in over a year. However, I can't say that I miss my friends. I don't think I've ever known them in well enough proximity to miss them.

I have come to learn that there may be no greater loss than one perceived. It’s one that isn’t tangible. It doesn’t have an end date because it had no start date either. I’m not sure how much of any relationship is real. Are they really friends if their friendship is only real for moments at a time on a tiny rectangle screen? I could turn off the phone and it would all be over. The moment would cease to exist and the relationship would no longer be possible. For some, I don’t even have their phone numbers. I can’t call them and tell them about my day. I don’t think I’ve ever heard about theirs.

What life is it to have to carefully avoid seeing your friend’s posts on social media because you can’t bear to catch glimpses of a life you’re not a part of?

What is it to know that you’ve never known life like that?

I know their birthdays, their middle names, their biggest fears, and their wildest dreams. I'll never know what they had for breakfast this morning or if my name has ever left their lips. But my mom knows them all and she asks how they've been.

She doesn't know I don't consider them friends at all because I just don't know what that means.

But that’s okay—it’s really no big deal.