Can We Start, Start Over?

Lately, and by lately I mean "since I moved to Virginia," I have not been interested in men. Not interested, for me, means barely flirting with some, and definitely not pursuing any. Nor have I been imagining myself in love with ex boyfriends, or looking to pick up some casual sex along the way. I'm just plain not interested, and I finally know why.

I'm not happy. I'm depressed, I'm way stressed out, and I hate nearly everything about where I am and what I'm doing right now. I haven't been this angry and miserable since a long-ass time ago. And while in college I would usually solve these problems by sleeping with a few inappropriate people and stirring up some interesting drama, I know better now.

I know that won't fix anything. And I know that no one but me can solve my problems. The solution is pretty simple, too: wait it out. Classes are bullshit. There's a ton of artificial pressure on us to learn things we'll never need to know again. I'm doing rotations in labs I know I won't join. I have finally, finally, finally found my calling (or at least some more specifics of my calling) and I'm forced to wait through protocol before I can get in there and actually cure some fucking cancer. I'm surrounded by the kind of people I used to make fun of in college--you know, the bio majors who ask what's going to be on every exam--and what's worse, I've become one of them. I ask what's going to be on the exam.

But it will all be worth it the day I can tell my father and brother they never have to worry about their prostates going nuts and spreading through their blood vessels to attack their other organs, which will probably be in ten or fifteen years. It will be worth it the day this virus is sequenced, and that's likely to be in the next year and a half. I just have to beat the Clinic to it. It'll be worth it the day I can walk into my PI's office and tell him I'm working for him, and he'll have to drag me kicking and screaming out of his lab, which will be five months. I love my future boss. I love my future project with an intense breathlessness I usually associate with poetry and caffeine.

I hate nearly everything about who I have to be right now, but I cannot wait to be who I'll become.