Don’t die a stupid death: Part I

This story is at Em’s request. Her version might be different. In which case, she is wrong.

A few years back, due to some unforeseen events, I wound up staying at my family’s rented beach cottage alone with my good friend Emily. I had known Emily since high school. We were a part of the same social group that hung out mostly because we didn’t fit anywhere else. Over the summers, Em was a life guard. I shelved books at the library. We possessed slightly different levels of athleticism.

Emily was also the adventurous type. Willing to pet bees and ready to touch the washed-up jelly fish. Emily liked riding the waves. I liked sitting on the sand watching crabs endlessly toss sand out of their little tunnels. Okay, and sometimes I liked kicking sand in their tunnels. Why am I mean to crabs? I don’t know. Maybe because I can be.

One day, Em came back from the water, completely drenched as usual, and announced that during her frolicking she had located a sand bar out a little ways from the shore. By her account, it was really cool and I needed to check it out.

I am not a fan of sea water in my eyes or mouth. When it gets there, I turn into an even bigger baby than usual. I am also always cold. This means that the sea water off the coast of NC, though cool to others, to me, is cold enough to make my feet ache. But Emily said I must. And I confess, I had experienced a sand bar once before and it was magical indeed. I agreed, I would go out with her to enjoy the wonders of the sand bar.

The next day we set off. It was mid-September and the beaches were mostly deserted. We walked a ways down the beach to where Em remembered the sand bar. We set off. “How deep does it get before you reach the sand bar?” I asked, as we crept into the water. “I don’t think it gets too deep,” she assured me. “Will my feet touch the ground?” I asked. “Um, maybe not. You have to swim a little, bit it isn’t far,” she said.

Okay.

So we swam. And swam. “It’s just a little bit further,” Em told me. I was getting a little nervous, but I trusted my friend. Swimming, swimming. Every so often Em would go under the water to see if she could touch the bottom. No sign of the sand bar.

Eventually I looked back to the shore. “Um, we’re pretty far out.” I told her, starting to lose faith. But we swam a bit more. I don’t know how much time passed, but to me it seemed we had swum for a very long time. Finally Emily relented. The sand bar was not here. She agreed, we should head back.

I was relieved to be getting out of this. I was tired and cold and ready to feel sand under my feet. So we swam toward the shore. And we swam, and we swam. But we weren’t getting any closer. I said so to Emily, but she insisted, yes, we were getting closer to shore. Swimming, swimming. It was beginning to dawn on me that we were in a rip tide. I remembered those stories on TV about strong swimmers drowning in rip tides. I’m not a strong swimmer.

Then it occurred to me, I thought, “This is it. This is how I am going to die. I’m going to be sucked out to sea. The end. Brilliant Angela. Your mom is going to be so pissed. Your dad is in the coast guard. He makes life jackets for a living, and you are going to drown. Nice.”

I told Emily, “I’m scared.” She replied, “Don’t panic, that’s the first rule.” Right. I thought the first rule was ‘don’t swim in a rip tide’, but whatever. And somehow, someone telling you not to panic, kind of has the opposite effect. Now I really was scared.

We kept swimming, putting everything into it. Emily started getting somewhere. I, still, was not. Soon she was several feet ahead of me. “Emily, I can’t keep up with you.” I called. “Okay, I’ll pull you,” she offered. Yes, Emily is a lifeguard, she’ll save me I thought. So she grabbed my arm and pulled as she swam. However, with dead weight Angela in tow, we couldn’t make any ground. Still swimming toward the shore, still not any closer to the shore, still not a good situation.

At some point, I can’t remember whether it was before or after we started swimming back, a lifeguard showed up. On the OBX of NC they don’t have lifeguards at posts, they just ride four wheelers up and down the beach, apparently hoping no one will need saving until they happen to drive by. Or maybe thy just hope no one will need saving. You'll see.

Anyway, I remember watching him watching me. He stood on his four wheeler and used his binoculars to watch us. I watched him debate, “I don’t really feel like jumping in and getting wet. Then again, if those girls drown, people will probably blame me. I am getting paid to do this. Hmmm, what to do what to do?”

I debated in my mind, which is more embarrassing, dying as a result of getting sucked out to sea or being rescued by a lifeguard? Tough call. Either fortunately or unfortunately the lifeguard wasn’t making any moves toward saving us, so option #2 wasn’t looking very likely. Sucked out to sea it is.

My mind moved back to the TV show about rip tides. (20 years of school and the most useful thing I know I learned by watching TV.) The way to get out alive they said was to swim parallel to the shore until you are out of the rip tide and then you will be pushed back to shore. At that moment, I wasn’t sure how much faith I had in the TV program, but it was all I had.

I told Emily I thought we were in a rip current and we should swim parallel to the shore for a while to see if we could get out of it. She agreed we should try it. It felt like a gamble. I was pretty tired, what if I wasted energy swimming parallel and couldn’t swim to shore after?

So we swam north for a while. The lifeguard still stood there with his binoculars, not acting the least bit Baywatch.

After a while, the shore started to look closer. We decided to swim toward shore again and sure enough, we quickly closed the distance. ( Apparently, everything they tell you on TV IS true.) Halfway to shore Mr. Utterly Useless Lifeguard sat back down in his four wheeler and drove off to watch more swimmers drown.

The sand felt beautiful under my feet. I don’t remember much about the rest of the vacation, but I’m sure I slept well that night and we didn’t go searching for anymore sand bars.

I do recall some kind of fun with a flashlight and chasing crabs at night. What can I say? I do it because I can.

And they lived happily ever after

Some friends of mine received as a wedding gift a plaque with that phrase on it.

I just found out and old acquaintance of mine has gotten engaged. She is 22, lovely and sweet, and has just graduated from college. He is 25 (when they met he was a senior and she a freshman), tall, broad shouldered, handsome, dependable.

And I kind of want to gag.

It is so cliché. They don’t need a plaque, they have ‘happily ever after’ written all over themselves. They are straight out of some romantic comedy. Some crazy hijinx occurs along the way, but in the end (thank God!) they come together, blissfully happy. La-de-dah. On their way to 2.5 kids.

I don’t mean to sound bitter. I am happy for them. And it’s not that my life isn’t like a movie. My life is just more like one of those dramatic chic flicks, where the girl gets screwed a lot and realizes all she has are her girlfriends. I prefer those movies anyway. But maybe that’s because I can relate to them. Is that art imitating life or life imitating art?

I find myself wondering, “Where is mine?” I’m not looking to be rescued, but it would be nice to have someone help me unload the groceries or clean the grill after a cookout.

I used to think I was single because I was too nice. Am I now too hard? Is it me? Or is it him? Or is it both of us? Why is this so hard for some of us? I stare at couples of all ages in wonder. How did all these people manage to get together? Is there something flawed in me that prohibits me from joining their club? Or, as some friends have suggested, are all those couples simply not picky enough? I don’t get it.

Don't let the city make you hard

This is what my dear friend Joanne said to me when she helped me move to Philly. We both got a good laugh out of it. Angela the door mat? Hard? Whatev.

And yet, I realized this weekend, that it has happened. Gone is the girl who handed out free blueberry muffins to a homeless man. (Turns out, when you do that, he’ll try to steal kisses and go home with you. Then you have to call the police on him. And in the end, both you and the homeless man would have been better off without the muffin.)

This weekend, I went camping with some friends from grad school. I had invited along my good friend Katie who I know from church. At the time I hadn’t thought anything of it. I never thought that I was any different at church than I am anywhere else in life. I was wrong. Grad school Angela is a lot meaner than church Angela.

It’s not just the city that made me hard. It was the city, combined with the hell that is grad school. You get it from every side. The faculty, post-docs, and fellow grad students are all out to prove to you that you are stupid and worthless and you don’t belong there. Students respond to this in various ways. Some pretend to be too cool for everything. Some internalize it and agree with their tormentors, “Yes, I am stupid, I don’t belong here,” letting their spirits get crushed. Some drink. Heavily. Some may actually deal with it in a healthy way (though I’m not sure what that is). Me, I used to belong to the camp of, “Yes, I’m worthless” but have since gone on the offensive. At my previous job I was the sweet helpful girl, always looking to lend a hand. Now, at work, I wear the face of, “Look at me wrong and I’ll cut you.” I will tell you how you can and cannot treat me. I’m not taking crap from anyone.

I was proud of the new me. I felt I had finally developed the thicker skin my mom always spoke of when I was growing up and given to crying too easily. Grad school and Philly made me tough. Nothing could stop me now, I thought.

Today, in lab meeting, my boss referred to something I had done as ‘stupid’, the first time he ever applied that word to me. A year ago this would have crushed me, leaving me in tears. Today, in my mind, I responded, “Yeah, well, you don’t know what you are talking about.” In this instance, I think my hardness is good.

But what about when you don’t know how to turn it off? What about being stingy and harsh with your friends when you are supposed to be having a good time? What about turning the other cheek? How do you balance it? What is the saying? “Thick skin, tender heart”? How do you get there?