My previous experiences as a researcher haunt me. Ever since my mediocre evaluation from Zarathustra U. last year, I haven't been able to move past it. I cursed the unrelenting nature of one of my supervisors, but more I was disgusted that I couldn't impress them, couldn't flourish. I have excuses, everyone has excuses: severe attention problems, back then no local friends and financial troubles. I was almost left homeless twice, could barely eat sometimes.

There were many wonderful days, but I lived in fear. Boston was overpriced and beautiful, lonely, the countless tourists and punker children over by Zarathustra Square's 'T' stop mingling together in unspoken sects, a more natural life I could only observe. I fast-walked past it all and marched to my job. I was so dedicated that I almost inevitably couldn't be dedicated.

So I am responsible, for my accomplishments and failures...and up to this hour, I hadn't faced that grotesque failure. It loomed over me, this demonic gargoyle starring straight down, straight at me. I couldn't walk away, but I couldn't look at it. And as the days and nights played tag I sat on the dais of the building it dominated, passing the time. Up to this hour, I hadn't asked my favorite supervisor why I was mediocre, how I had fucked up; I couldn't look up at the statue. But recently I felt different, like all these old skin scales were itching too much. So I finally emailed him and starred up, looking back at my shame. It was just a sad bunch of stones, an empty monument with no purpose in the present. I think I can start walking away from it now.

Old fears aren't necessarily negative, though. I also recently emailed a colleague of mine, who works in an electrophysiology lab at U. of Chicago. He's brilliant, certifiably the best Psychology student to come out of Germany in years...and yet, this man was impressed by my drive and my vision. He was afraid of me in some way, but we were and are still friends. In a way, talking to him makes me wonder that maybe some of his thoughts about me are true; fear of honesty is odd. I wonder how he's been.

Then there's the fear of re-establishing intimacy. I'm about to contact some of my old friends just beginning their sophmore year of college. Matt, Bo, Liz, Katie, Russ. Totally meaningless names to all of you, but bear with me. These were people that deeply cared about me in my last year of college, when I felt like noone I knew there did. They opened up to me and showed me their lives, their interests. Matt with his passions for the martial arts and Bruce Lee's ideology, Bo's love of Punk and struggle for identity, Katie's search to find herself, Liz's security in happiness and really living, Russ' zest and suprising sensitivity.

They all taught me something...and they all accepted me. There was a collective hope and potential in all of them that made me smile, something to just admire silently while bullshitting over day-to-days. I was by far the eldest and I wondered why, why did I love these people so much and did they feel the same way. It's the little things that tip you off: how Liz hugged me when I commented how all of them seemed so happy in their relationships, the way Matt spoke to me with conviction sometimes.

I mostly stopped visiting older friends and just hung out with those five. It was intimate, not cliquish. I miss them the most out of anything at Oberlin. Soon, actually right now, I'll write a long letter about my life since graduation and how I've thought about them, pick away another bit of flesh.

Maybe I should thank Jen or Cpttylor for the strength, maybe others... but I am responsible for my accomplishments and failures. Up to this hour, I hadn't faced some of the old fears associated with either.

It feels good to let go.

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