Of all the awful people walking around, the ones I can't stand the most are the ones telling me to live every moment like it's my last. For them, life is one big victory lap, filled with moments that take their breath away and reverent appreciation for the beauty of a single dewdrop on a single flower petal. They condescendingly quote Gandhi, Mother Theresa and Buddha and are always reminding you how bad others have it and how appreciative you should be. But their absolute favorite line is "it's okay" or, if the situation is particularly dire, "it'll be okay." But sometimes, it's not okay, and it won't be okay.
I've had plenty of friends with this disposition. They make attractive friends because they can make almost anything interesting. These are the friends you go to parties with, and everything is all sunshine and silliness. But then you get a call from home out of the blue, and you step outside. That's when you learn that chemotherapy will give her an extra month to live, maybe two at the most, and the last thing you want is to go back inside, tell your friends, and hear metaphors of storms passing and roads not taken. And while you wander down the road's broken yellow lines accompanied only by the click-clack of your shoes, you're not quite sure who to call or how to call or if you should call at all. That's when you want to be angry and upset and scared, and you don't want to feel embarrassed because someone tells you "it's okay." Nothing about walking the streets at 3 a.m. too heartbroken to sleep is okay.
Not accepting failure is how most of us got here. We solve problems no matter how difficult they may seem, and that's why parents, teachers and coaches tell us we make them proud. But when unfair, immutable events come around, oftentimes there is no solution just ways to cope with what has happened, and that's when things are "real talk" bad. That's when you need your best friend to stop quoting Dr. Seuss and start encouraging you to sob violently and yell hysterically and face the fact that something went terribly, irrevocably awry.
Don't get me wrong: I need my friends to help me keep my life in perspective. I need someone to tell me that midterms always end, no one needs a career at 22 and formals are really just a normal Friday night in expensive clothes. That being said, I don't want someone to patronize what I'm feeling just because it isn't manufactured optimism. I don't want someone to pat me on the head and tell me to calm down. The thing about problems is they don't just go away. In the morning we can try to make sense of it all, but right now all I need is catharsis and self-destruction.
This column is awkwardly timed because we usually wait until the spring to get meta-reflective and post-nostalgic, but I've never understood why people wait to the end to say what's most important to them. I've already started to idealize Dartmouth to remember my time here as endless euphoria punctuated by trips to the ledges and afternoons splashing in kiddie pools. I know that remembering Dartmouth like this isn't accurate for me, and I hope it isn't for you, either. I'm infinitely happier now that I've accepted that I was never infinitely happy.
We need people to help us put things in perspective, to calm us down and to point out that the world won't stop turning because one pong date ended in romantic ruin. But when someone you love tells you that she doesn't like the person you've become, and you worry that you don't like the person you've become either, that's when you need a friend who says it's okay to be upset someone who neglects his homework to sit in silence with you, playing the angsty song you want to hear on repeat. When shit gets real talk bad, don't tell your best friend it'll be fine, and don't accept it when he tells you the same. If that's all you're hearing, feel free to come find me. I'll be the one smashing champagne bottles in tears.
