'Why I Aught-a': a decade in review

2001:

Met my first serious boyfriend. Clarkie. Well, Mike, actually. He was two years older and lived in residence with Heather. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Geology student. After nine months together, discovered I liked his family way more than him. First serious breakup ensued.

2001 was a rough year, full of personal turmoil and tragedy. What started wonderfully ended fitfully, particularly when my best friend--Steph P.--and Mike determined they didn't care for each other and I became a battlefield for their petty competitions and jealousies. Didn't want to lose my best friend or my boyfriend, so I didn't choose. Steph and I stopped speaking in the summertime, which I can now admit was a more heartrending breakup than the one that came later with Mike. It was silly and juvenile and was something we would have gotten over. Had we had time. Sadly, that was all the time we'd have.

2001 for me was the onset of the Great Depression. Not a sparse desertification of my self, but rather a descent into the depths of misery. It was a combination of many compounding factors that have left a legacy I still feel to this day. I had several near-rock bottoms, but not until September did I truly hit it.

In June I awoke one day to excruciating pain in my back and abdomen. After several days of hospital visits and agony, I was diagnosed with gallstones and had my second organ (after my appendix) removed. The recovery time was long and painful, and I spent the summer indoors, watching movies and wishing I could be out with my friends. My boyfriend came to visit, but there was resentment after losing my friend and sadness at missing the socializing I was used to.

It came to a head just before school started again. I woke up one day and couldn't get out of bed. My stomach was in knots and I wanted to sink into a hole and never get out. Mike and I broke up. Both my grandfathers died within several months. Then Steph went into the hospital in November. I visited her once, where we had an awkward conversation, skirting around the obviously stupid feud and trying to open the doors of communication, if briefly.

She died at the end of December.

Guilt, depression and stress made for dark times, but there were moments of levity and promise. I started writing for the Gateway, the campus newspaper, with encouragement from my dear friend Leah. This opened up an outlet for expression and an opportunity to meet new people and gain new experiences I never otherwise would have had.

New Year's Eve ended with a big shebang at Bettsy's. Mandy and I shared a bottle of Absinthe and we toasted to Steph's memory. It was a hell of a party. A hell of a year.