Darkness: The Fight

This is my fourth "Write on Wednesday" post.

I've found the others less personal, more fictional, but this one is a story from my life- it's all about being honest, telling a 100% truth, but I don't have to tell everything.

One thing I've found about my story--well, many of my stories--is that there are elements of "me" that are always secret. Truth be told, the truth is always told, but there are some secrets- we all have secrets. What's made part of everything such a fight for me, though, lies within my secrets, the demons that haunt me, and the trouble with writing this exercise, the 100% truth, is that I might find myself slipping into the things that I may not want to share, or that may not be easy to share. It's not so much a thing of openness, as a thing of security and worry about how it will affect my future. However, it may be healthy to air it a little and see how it feels. I've opened up on other forums- time to open up slightly here.

The darkness is encapsulating. It's like nothing I've ever seen before. In the years before, I've been able to hide in it well, pretend it's not there, and nobody would notice. Family, "friends," schoolmates, most of my former coworkers, they were all oblivious to the darkness that surrounded me and the fight that I fought, or if not, they asked nothing of it. In my teen years, it was less encapsulating, easier to hide. I could put a curtain around it, a façade of sorts, and nobody would know. In college, I would talk about it, but nobody would believe it- after all, I seemed so well for so long, why would it all of the sudden change?

These days, though, it is not as easy. Life has become more of a challenge in itself. As I push myself harder, fight harder, the darkness is becoming deeper. I want out of this darkness; I can no longer hide it, but I have found that in the time I spent hiding it, it's become so much deeper, it's extended to a depth that I can't escape, I'm holding on but I can't fight and hold on at the same time. I want to do this on my own, I don't want anyone to know, but I can't. There's nowhere to escape, nowhere to hide, nothing to put in front of this darkness to make it go away or make it smaller. It has become bigger than I am, and in itself, taken over my life.

To someone on the outside, it's hard to see or understand the darkness or the reason for it. I should be happy, by all means. I have nothing to be unhappy about. You're right. I have a family. I have a home. I have food, and I have clothing. I went to, and graduated from, a major university. I have all the things a person could want, and then some. Plenty of books, a nice room decorated the way I want it, a personal laptop, a nice smartphone, my sock monkey, a sister whom I love to death, my physical health (not perfect, but close enough), no huge personal losses...what is there to be unhappy about? Where does the darkness come from?

I don't know where the darkness comes from. It's something I can't explain. It'll leave me crying at unexplained times, and it left me fighting my way through college. I fight the darkness every time I have to go somewhere, every time I have to do something when I am feeling the darkness weigh down on me. I wake up to face the day and all I want to do is close my eyes again and forget, stop fighting, let the darkness take over and consume me; it's what I've wanted for so many years, but I continue to fight.

Nevertheless, I carry on with the darkness, no matter how much it's weighing on me, and I try not to let it affect me. I've done well at carrying it through everything, and even getting a degree with the darkness inches from me. In the end of my college days, I even started pulling my grades up, finishing the last 2 years with more As than I saw in my first 4 years. It's a rough fight, an endless fight, and even more so fighting alone. In college, I found a way to get someone to fight with me, but now, I'm on my own. It's an uphill battle.

One thing, one last thing that I must share- the darkness is the reason I fight. If it were not for the darkness, I would not know what I am fighting for, and I may not be where I am today. The darkness gives me a reason to fight, and it helps me to fight. It helps me to know about the people I am fighting for, and it pushes me to fight harder. I know what it's like to fight this fight. I know what it's like to be in the darkness, and I fight it every day. To know that the fight I go through every day could save someone's life? That is something that makes the fight even more worthwhile. I don't enjoy the darkness, not a bit, but I know that the darkness has taught me a lesson that can used to help someone else, and has given me more strength and taught me more than any textbook or professor could. I'm not thankful for the darkness, but I'm thankful for the insights and perspective it's added to my life. It's made me a better person, and it's given me direction. Most of all, even though I have to fight through the darkness to get there, it's given me something to fight for.

Write On Wednesdays Exercise 12 - The Fight. You have to be honest, because without honesty, your work won't speak to people. You have to be fearless, because restraint in writing can be perceived. But that doesn't mean that you have to bare your entire soul. Choose what you want to share, choose what is relevant to your story. But make sure that what you choose to share is real, and true. The exercise today is to write a story from your life. And remember: it has to be 100% true, but it doesn't have to be 100% of the truth. There's a difference. The keywords are: The Fight

Freshman

As I'm finishing this week, I'm going into some retrospect as to how I got where I am today, and the first thing I think back to is the beginning of my college experience.

This is where it all began, 6 years ago, almost to the day. Same university, I even remember the first classes I took. At the time I was working at a fast food chain- for the sake of said chain, let's call it FFC (fast food chain). I'm laughing at that. Those who know me probably are too. I had just received my drivers' license less than a month before I started commuting there every day, and, the joy of everyone who wears orthodontia, I had just gotten my braces removed.

August 2005.

It seems like so long ago, but relatively, it wasn't. So much has changed since then.

It was my first year of college. I was in the honors college, after graduating second in my class and having an above average SAT score, and I had a stable, but not all that great, full-time job at FFC. I started out with honors Calculus, honors Biology (which I later dropped, after the realization that I was not at all a science person), a freshman honors class, and some other class I really don't remember.

I was a busy person, and I didn't know what kind of sucker-punch I was in for. After 2 semesters, I was kicked out of the honors college, and I lost my scholarship after 3. High school doesn't prepare you for college. Nothing prepares you for college except starting college.

The classes are different. The professors are nothing like your teachers. The expectations are different. You have more freedom. You're not required to attend class, but it's recommended, and it definitely helps. You get a lot more out of the experience if you participate. You can go to class in your pajamas. You can eat and drink in class, and bring your laptop for notes (usually).

I, of course, was still in high school mode. I went to every class, even my 8am honors Calculus class through rush hour traffic in Ft. Worth. I worked my FFC job at night. Often I spent most of my evening at work, working until 11 or midnight, so that I could go home and do homework, and wake up again as early as 4-5am.

What I Learnt:

1) The routine got old. I learnt along the way that you actually don't have to sign up for 8am classes- they actually offer classes all day. It's better to choose classes that are more suitable for your sleeping and waking schedule, otherwise, you'll be less motivated to attend, which leads me to...

2) Motivation is key. If you're not motivated in the class, it will be a brutal semester, and you will have to force yourself to do the work. If you love the class, it will be much easier to complete the work you have to do because you'll actually like what you're doing. That doesn't mean you can skip the class, which leads me to...

3) Don't skip class. Really. The professors sometimes say that they don't give a flying flip whether you attend class, but really, your grade is at stake. If you really think you can skip all the classes and pass, you should have CLEP'd out of the class anyway, instead of paying to take it. Attending class is really important, and often you miss more material if you don't go. It helps to make the material sink in more easily. Some professors even consider upping marginal grades for good attendance. Remember that the next time you reach for that snooze button.

4) Parking will be bad, no matter what school you go to. Get used to it. Parking lots will be full, they will create increasing faculty lots. Think of it as exercise. Some people have problems with the "Freshman 15"....maybe this will help combat that. Plus, it'll give you some time to think, and learn how to navigate campus and dodge traffic. Always a plus....

5) Take good notes. It's a good way to get people who want to study with you. Don't be the one looking for people with good notes, because the ones with good notes will probably want to avoid you. So...errr...maybe you should take good notes secretly or something. Don't be a magnet. Don't do all the work on group projects.

6) Remember some of the stuff you're learning. It's actually kind of useful. I've found myself reciting facts I learnt in some other class and I'm like "woah, I actually did learn something useful in there!" There is something to take from almost every class. You may not think so, but there is a reason for every class.

7) Depending on your major, learn APA or MLA formatting really quickly. I have, on my jump drive, a document that is already APA formatted (running head, margins, page numbers, title page, and whatnot) so that I can just input the information I need. This has been extremely helpful, so that I don't have to go through and try to remember how I edit the individual running heads on each page. Since I'm doing social work, most of my documents will be APA. Usually, you know by the end of your 1st year of classes which format most of your papers will be in. If you can't figure it out, the library almost always has someone who can help you, and most college campuses even have a writing center that can help you out with this. Use your resources. They're there for a reason!! (also, learn the difference between their, they're, and there, as well as your and you're...these are very common mistakes).

8) When you must do group projects, which you will at one point or another, make sure to get names and phone numbers of each group member, and archive any contact with them, for your purposes. This way, if they don't communicate, you have record of it. If they communicate poorly, or tell you they don't "want" to do something, you have record of it. This can be helpful when going through the process, and make sure you keep in touch with the professor if you have any problems.

9) You absolutely must have a jump drive, and this thing will be your savior. I even have a follower, who will go unnamed, who can attest to this. She had a computer crash while printing out a paper, and was able to take the jump drive to another computer and print it out. It saves your files, and it is helpful during presentations, rather than pulling up your email account in front of the class to open a presentation. It also holds lots of information, and it's easy to carry. It plugs into a USB port, and is compatible with the majority of computers (but make sure they don't require encryption as major corporations do, otherwise it will mess up your drive). They don't usually cost much, often less than $10, and they last forever. Get one.

These are just some of the things I wish I had known my freshman year of college. I stumbled my way through college, not having many people to turn to for advice in my family, and not having any friends that had been through the process. Eventually, I got through it, and learnt how things work, and now I'm close to graduation, so close that I can feel it breathing down my neck. I have a lot of apprehension about it, and it's been quite a journey. There's so much more I could write about it, but for now, I'll just "save it for later".

Deuces