My Own Life

Tomorrow I’m going to go get a library card.  I have been in college before this so I had access to all the books I ever needed, wanted, imagined, and even those I didn’t imagine.  But now, four months after the last semester I’ve run out of books to read.  I would usually peruse the used book stores in the area, but this month I can’t even afford that. So tomorrow, I will explore the main library in this city. 

I was initially discouraged because it’s only four stories and the building looks pretty small but I found out that as a member of this library I also have access to the entire minuteman library network.  Yay!!!! It includes the public libraries of about 35 surrounding cities and 6 academic libraries.  I don’t know how well that compares to Harvard’s 99 libraries but I only visited 6 of those. 

 By the way, my favorite read of the summer was The Complete Sherlock Holmes Treasury by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, not very deep, but oh so fun.  I bought the beautiful hardcover copy at the Brattle Book Store in downtown Boston for $3. 

 That is my favorite used book store ever.  You find thousands of books for under $5, mostly hard cover.  Inside the bookstore are hundreds more, but most of these are a little more expensive and some a lot more, they’re collectibles.  I get lost in the beauty of the books in front of me.  I don’t know how common this is; I love reading and the wonderful worlds within a book, but a beautiful binding, cover, or illustrations can be just as enchanting.

Mrs. Grimes asked for an update on my personal life.  And I will grant you that wish but I must say that it makes me rather uneasy.  My life has not been the greatest recently and I have been rather hindered by it. 

 I have amazing parents but when they got divorced they didn’t make it easy for us kids.  Divorces/separations are rather hard in general, and in our case it was a very complicated situation.  I don’t wish to go into detail with that but I mention it because it occurred when I was 12, a very critical point in a child’s life.  My response to it all was to help my sisters and parents deal with it but I never dealt with it myself.  As a result I was always a very aggressive, depressed, and confused child.  The only thing I thought I had was school.  I could get attention by doing my best and in turn doing something for myself. 

 That was all good and dandy but it only worked while I got the attention and justification I needed. 

When I began college, I was only one of many ,very talented students. That was point one. 

I saw my family move on without me, they still loved me but they didn’t need me in their lives every day.  That was point two. 

At that point I found myself forced to deal with the emotional/mental issues that had plagued me since I was a preteen.  College is difficult as it is, especially at a school as cutthroat as Harvard.  I found that my problems were not stemming from my uneasiness with the academic work but with my mental instability. 

After the second semester of my sophomore year, I finally accepted that I was depressed and sought medical help for it.  Things were starting to change in my life and I believe I would have been well if I had not been surprised by the tragic death of my stepfather.  In the midst of a difficult semester in which I was hanging on by a thread, clinically depressed, the accident happened.  Two weeks before the semester ended.  Two weeks before winter break.  It left me immobilized I didn’t have the strength to face both situations so I chose to revert to my prior role in support of my family.  I took a late leave of absence and went to be with my family.  I was supposed to be in treatment while I was gone but I wasn’t able to get the health insurance necessary for that.  I stopped taking my medication about 1 week later.  Read the rest of this entry »