A few years ago, I decided to stop being a hopeless fuckup. “But SiS,” you might say. “You seem so smart! You know so much! You’re definitely a contributing member of society!”
Except when I wasn’t. I spent years being what might charitably called “a gigantic fucking mess.” A trainwreck, if you will. So when I discovered science – first molecular biology, and then neuroscience – it was a little like if dead John Candy dug himself out of the ground and decided to become a figure skater. My friends laughed that humoring, slightly sarcastic laugh you laugh when your couch potato friend announces she’s going to start going to the gym every day. A 1 in 10,000 chance. Maybe 1 in 100,000. Maybe lower.
But fuck those guys, and fuck my natural tendency towards intellectual sloth, and fuck my natural sleep schedule of 4 AM to noon, and fuck the fact that I’m so distracted I frequently forget to eat or shower, and fuck the fact that my hands used to shake so bad I could barely tie my shoes, let alone direct a miniscule pipet tip into a tiny well in a block of gelatin. Fuck difficultly. Fuck self-doubt. Fuck embarrassment over asking a dumb question, over showing up at a professor’s office hours to ask him if he believes in free will, over needing help, over failure, over crying from stress and exhaustion, over saying no to every offer to go out during the week, over lifting my legs up to let the library janitor vacuum under me at 1 AM.
I didn’t find Jesus. I didn’t get myself a boyfriend. I didn’t start with a new therapist. I didn’t do it for my family, or my friends, or my (theoretical) kids. I didn’t make excuses. I didn’t listen to anybody.
If I can go from a druggie waste of oxygen to a neuroscience student, then you can do anything. You just have to find what you love. It’s out there.
