The Middle
Seven Yrs Later are stories on change, in dialogue with Seven Yrs Ago.
I had never taken a drawing class or opened an Adobe program, so I didn’t know what I signed up for when at 18, I decided to become an architect. I was a multi-medaled-student-of-the-year-two-time-county-spelling-bee-champ, so I knew how to be the best, but not how to be middling. The middle of architecture school was proven through studio, the class all design students generate projects in, the bedrock for their philosophies and careers. While there was rivalry between peers, I was more interested in process than product, so I sparred with myself the most while my classmates, at worst, reminded me of what I lacked. I didn’t have spatial instincts, software savvy, clean craftsmanship, or field knowledge, so I did what I do best: I worked.
Parties and classes that didn’t fit in my schedule around studio got cut, meals and sleeping too. Every architecture student knows their record for the least amount of time they slept: mine is nine hours over four days and when I didn’t finish my project, I non-spontaneously combusted. It did get better—there were some fantastical semesters where it looked like I knew what I was doing, then came the Big Bad Year. 2013 started with a breakup, which I took on the chin, then the punches kept flying, like a slow-mo knockout on replay. When I wasn’t pouring noxious resin molds and haphazardly nail gunning wood, I was weaving a chicken wire bench by myself. School was wearing down my partner and I sympathized, so I let him sit out, nevermind how I started gagging when I slept less than five hours; those were more nights than hours. The semester closed with a project my professor designed as he found his ideas more compelling than mine. I drew it impeccably and reviled it. It was the best review I received.
Third year, the midpoint of the five-year program, would be fun though—everyone loves Housing and models, plus I suddenly had a squad from my summer around campus. We hit every party on Menlo, a departure from how I usually holed up, and now I was laughing on camera and backing up multiple personalities and fake names. We had the same classes, so I didn’t have the excuse of being too busy to hang, but surely my work would suffer, so I went ahead with the suffering.
I had a history with difficulties, in that I needed to dominate them. I didn’t skip birthdays to study for competitions to not win. I didn’t cry for months in high school, then apply myself to not graduate top five and leave home. I taught myself how to skateboard/bleed that summer and after school started, I toppled off my board. My elbow jutted out of my skin and after the doctors drugged me to pop it back, my body sobbed for about 40 min. I kept checking my watch. I had to go to studio.
My brain wasn’t as ready to break. I relaxed around decency, so my mantras were “stupid bitch” and “fucking lazy asshole.” The asshole was me, the one who didn’t care about square footage, program, openings, diagrams, everything that solely mattered to that point. I longed for when I pushed without question, before I wondered if I wanted the product, what I would have at the end of college. The five-year Bachelor of Architecture degree would allow me to work promptly towards licensure, to constructing and actualizing life-size structures—but I didn’t care about buildings. I kinda never did. I was always more interested in the people in them, and my process was taking me farther from anyone and anything else I cared about. Turns out I didn’t want to be an architect. I gagged.
Wanting to change my major meant needing to drop out of college; I didn’t know what I wanted, I just wanted out. I pleaded with my mom to let me quit and she countered that I finish. I set up serial appointments for my exit strategy with my advisor and settled on completing studio that semester, so I could switch to the four-year architecture program and graduate on time—the second best option to leaving immediately. I was shockingly rational for upending my identity, analyzing my choices and still showing up for studio. Tied up though, my doggedness bit harder.
“Bitch” was a pet name compared to the self-hatred I drilled for fuel; no insult was too low or accurate enough to cease. By the end of the second project, all deprivation felt right. I kept up with the squad, but held off on telling them I was leaving, as it would’ve been demoralizing to take them into my sadness. It was easier to lose it in front of strangers, which I did all over campus, publicly bawling on the phone that I needed to leave, despite my actions making me stay. To keep my friends out and relieve my parents, I finally considered the unthinkable. I went to the health center to talk with a counselor.
Elizabeth seemed like my mom’s age, which probably helped. In crisis mode, I told her more than I was used to telling anyone, so it only took a few sessions to discover key issues. She asked if I was proud of my performance in school or my previous accomplishments. I denied ever achieving anything. When she asked how long I felt this way, I traced it back to about 14. By the time the second spelling bee arrived, my win was an expectation, not a triumph. She asked how I felt now and I said that getting hit by a car would be nice. I never made a plan, but an accident would make things easier. She called this a suicidal thought, which was surprising because I thought everyone wanted to die sometimes. I didn’t know that wanting to die for years was unusual. This clarification was given three days before my final deadline, and I was shaking so much that my friend held the balsa wood while I glued. I finished the model, drawings, presentation, and studio. When I left, I never regretted it.
For years, I forgot how this happened as I didn’t mark where I buried it. I knew enough to mock myself for freaking out over changing my major, that I needed to hide my humiliation. The softer truth is that for the first time in my young life, I was questioning my purpose and why my existence was so wrapped up in battle. I unroll still, with my friends, family, and therapist, a legendary third category if you want to understand how you’re not the problem and you don’t have to become it. I found room for pride, and I’m proud I outlasted a fight I didn’t want to win. I’m not the worst things that have happened to me and I’m not the best. I’m the middle, in touch with what I want to maintain, and at a distance from the rest, grounded in that I made it through. When I cross new avenues, I look both ways. I very much like being alive. That’s what I want.