Chichen Itza

The first of the seven wonders of the world that I visit is not the Great Wall of China, but Chichin Itza. I have no complaints. It also occurs to me that if I had the opportunity to visit the Taj Mahal, the swallowing of pride to accept the offer would be extraordinarily painful and ordinarily impossible. Today, it is impossible, and I think its a good time to give John Green and David Levithan their appropriate credits for keeping me from having a mental breakdown. The approximately 8 hours spent on the bus was a convenient, if not forced time of rest, reflection, and a deep squirming to be as physically far as possible from people and family in general. As per usual, reflection turned into the following...

I had long thought that I was a mild enough person to be able to forgive anyone. When I become angry with my parents, I shut up*. Sometimes, I coped by reading books about oppressed children, occasionally shedding a tear when all is resolved and the Korean daughter goes to Yale by her own choice and play violin because she loves music and her parents don't love money to death (Good Enough, Paula Yoon). When I wish I never had a sister, I make a couple insulting remarks about her existence and cruelly hope that she will not be as academically or athletically motivated as I have been. I am not, in fact, torn between wanting to kill myself and killing other people (will grayson, David Levithan). Getting over problems was not the big deal.

In a sense, this is like my s'okay post, where everything but one thing is okay. Everything is always okay. The problem is still the elephant because it crashes a lot of cocktail parties, and even when I hate small talk, I'd still like to enjoy a party, a cocktail, or two**. There is always a point when I'm in the middle of sleeping and waking that an incessant desire to curse overcomes my entire chest. No matter how hard I work out (INSANITY), I can only enlarge myself so much; there is only so much room I can make for all of the "fuck you"s that I can't say***. Also it felt strangely difficult to finally type that, so I imagine that verbally expressing such a phrase would be either immensely relieving or evil-inducing. I guess I can't have it both ways.

I don't think anyone really sees how undiminished and overbearing this anger has been since the day I missed two vocabulary questions on the PSATs, but I am still, still, undoubtedly seething and, on the long and  unusually straight roads of Cancun, lamenting that I will be the one who gives myself away, and never the other way around.

It is possible to isolate this stage of grief as the point where I project how much I hate myself onto someone else, but if this is true, I can assure you that it doesn't feel any better than anything. In some ways, its worse, because there will probably never be a time or place where I can kill someone without being kicked off of some academic team, and I am helpless to do anything else moral or self-respecting. Sometimes, I wonder if its worth my self-respect, and then I realize it always is. But its noteworthy that I have never considered hurting myself (and consequently, I would assume, select others) more.

On a brighter and literally warmer note, the run has saved me once again. Run to live, live to run.

* “Also, I feel that crying is almost--like, aside from deaths of relatives or whatever-- totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 
1.Don't care too much. 
2. Shut up. 
Everything unfortunate that has ever happened to me has stemmed from failure to follow one of the rules.” 
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

**“NO. No no no. I don't want to screw you. I just love you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?! People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are important questions, I guess. But they're not that important. You know what's important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?!” 
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

***“i will admit there's a certain degree of giving a fuck that goes into not giving a fuck. by saying you don't care if the world falls apart, in some small way you're saying you want it to stay together, on your terms.” 
― David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Oh, and Chichen Itza? Absolutely astounding. The math, physics, astronomy, power, education, observation, everything, everything behind its building and civilization was beyond my understanding. This occasion was one of the first times I appreciated the minute knowledge graced upon me by AP World. The enormity of these people (but not height-wise) made them real, and for once, I had some remnant of appreciation for the foundation of the Americas. The Mayans were truly what the world deemed to be great.