don't look back in anger

when i filled out my law school application, i had to spend a little time on my first attempt at an undergrad degree. i dropped all but one of my classes in second year, then did a summer course, then failed all four of my third-year courses. this required some words. as a result, i thought a lot about the crisis of 2001 - how my family imploded, how my younger sister and i faced new and daunting financial responsibilities, how we both felt abandoned and hopeless, and how no one seemed to understand.

i remember walking around chinatown one day and suddenly realizing what had happened. it was more than three months later.

despite the religious aspects of this event, christian friends didn't seem to get it. there was a lot of material support, but people didn't seem to have any sort of lens through which they could clearly see what we were going through. despite knowing me for many years, my high school friends didn't get it, either. and they seemed to disappear. after my sister and i found an apartment, most of my friends didn't come to the housewarming. people from university came, but they mostly didn't know why we were in a new place. in fact, i don't think anyone has ever responded to this part of my life in a way that implies "getting it." my sister and i feel very differently about that moment of decision, so not even she understands it the way i do.

it's very hard for me not to be angry, even eight years later. and it's hard for me not to read that same pain into contemporary instances of feeling alone. we all have our own lives to lead, and we rarely spend too much time thinking about what the "minor characters" in our stories are doing when they're not in the same scenes as us. back then, we were busy with complicated romantic relationships, we were coming out of the closet, we were trying to figure out what our studies had to do with the rest of our lives, we had our own part-time jobs to deal with, we had other friends... and now we have relatives who are lonely or in poor health, jet lag, spouses, work and financial stresses, and other friends.

i guess i just always hoped that we would also have each other. and that, somehow, that would be enough to help us "get it."