Another Round

Film still from Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, 2013.

For the past few months, I have been living what I would deem my most hedonistic period of life thus far. I have been on quite a few flights, gotten one new stamp on my passport, have driven more often up and down 95 and Biscayne Boulevard than ever before, have also unfortunately probably drank more frequently than I have in the past three years, hung out multiple times a week with my friends, devoured movies and actually finished shows (it took me two years to finish Sex and the City but I finally did it), and have, for all intents and purposes, been, uncharacteristically, a “yes!” woman. In proper accordance with the yin and yang and seesaw balance of life, I have also felt incredibly, uncomfortably so, disconnected from myself. 

Ever since I first learned about the concepts of introversion and extroversion, I have comfortably placed myself in the “introverted” camp, knowing that if I didn’t have my alone time I would probably vibrate from overstimulation up and out of the earth’s atmosphere. I honestly was perversely relieved during COVID when we couldn’t go to social gatherings — I needed reprieve from the first two years of college and space to figure out everything I had just been through, specifically on my own. Sometimes people who know me in real life disagree with my self-identification because I am "bubbly and talkative in social settings”, and while I don’t negate some truth in the statement, it is also something that exists within me for only a short period of time. I am a rechargeable battery with a short but energetic life-span and I am okay being that way. 

Not to sound like an alien impersonating a human, but sometimes being in social settings just feels like I am gathering reconnaissance on how to actually “be a human”. This is also why I love mundane, quotidian depictions of life in books and movies – do they live as I do? What do they do in the quiet of the hours when no one is around? Do they also make jokes to themselves while cooking? As I’ve gotten older, this has shifted away from that fear that I am living life “incorrectly” (there is no “right” way to live, unless we want to unpack religious and philosophical codes right now) and more towards a general interest and curiosity in humanity. Celine Song said in an interview with Modern Love from The New York Times recently that her “drug of choice is people”, and I couldn’t agree more. 

So why does a few months of the epicurean lifestyle, full of people and food and fun, rub me the wrong way?  

It’s because by saying yes to everyone else meant saying no to myself and my alone time. I no longer found myself writing on Saturday afternoons or before bed in a frantic hurry to get my thoughts out before I fell asleep. I was too overstimulated to process what I was even doing or question behaviors as I normally do, the trait that I lean on for my writings, both personal and public. It felt like that quote from Lady Gaga when she talks about the chaos of creating her album The Fame: “bus, club, another club”. And in this merry go round of socialization and sips of wine, I felt myself moving further and further away from who I had been for the past three years – frantic, anxiety-ridden, and always questioning. Not necessarily fully wonderful traits, but ones that I had grown accustomed to. 

It felt like I had traded in the old version of myself for someone who unquestionably sought out pleasure. What I mean is that, until these past few months, I have honestly lived life as if I had to earn my keep, had to earn my fun, my pleasure, my enjoyment. Those were not things that I could pursue just because they are deemed fun or enjoyable, I had to do X to get Y. I didn’t apply this standard to other people, at least not consciously, but it did always leave me confused why some people felt like giving into their every desire was okay – who gave them the right? What had they done behind the scenes that had paid for their way to enjoyment? 

If you’re reading this and thinking “jeez, that is some f*cked up thinking patterns that girl has”, trust me I know. I am well aware that my ridiculous self-standards have probably squandered many opportunities and dimmed moments of enjoyment out of feeling guilty for even having them in the first place. Spoken like a true guilty Catholic, despite the fact that I was raised non-religiously! 

In the moment, I hardly even realized what was happening, that my connection to myself and my usual internal monologue was drifting further and further apart. When I returned home from visiting my family in Turkey in the beginning of June – after sustaining a minor concussion, might I add – I texted my friend that I felt weird, guilty, and shameful about the past few months. My old self had finally reeled itself back in and reared its ugly head with my current self, ironic, given that my current self was the one with the actual ugly head with a still-present bump and a shapeshifting, healing black eye.

In the process of trying to figure out what this all means, I think that I am learning that existing on extreme ends of a spectrum does not sit well with me. When the seesaw side of enjoyment is at its peak, the side that holds my internal chatter is nowhere to be found. Some people might argue that this is good, that I should lean into this new self that doesn’t feel guilty about enjoyment, but the truth is that living this way has made me feel like I’ve undergone an unwanted lobotomy. Constantly seeking pleasure and socialization does not feel good to me. Not without time alone, time to question, to write, to brood and be bored, to even be unhappy. 

If I am not writing, I am not truly living. To be disconnected from oneself is one of the greatest tragedies one can suffer, in my opinion. And I understand now why people so often choose it in this world of chaos, hurt, agony, and despair. People joke about getting lobotomies or taking 1950’s housewife barbiturates because we believe it would soothe the brain to be unaware of such things, to turn a blind eye to reality and live in the fantasy of constant enjoyment, or at least blissful ignorance. It’s part of why I often feel so at odds with Miami, it frequently feels like they give out lobotomies for free upon moving here or like all the constant sunshine causes people’s brains to melt out of their ears. 

Though I tried earlier to eschew diving into philosophy, it seems that ultimately everything I write about boils back down to it, the final form. In this case to Socrates’ famous quote that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. Pleasure without reflection dilutes our experiences and leaves us quickly forgetting what we have done and in turn always constantly seeking it out, whereas pleasure with reflection enriches our experiences, deepening their impact on the story of our lives and wrapping them up in an almost cinematic gauze in our memories. 

“What initiated this bacchanal?”, you might be wondering. Well, I got into medical school and start in a few weeks – way to bury the lede, I know. Once it had officially registered in my brain that I was going back to school (and to be honest, it still hasn’t registered 100%) I finally could breathe a little bit after years of holding my breath, and, at the suggestion of literally every family member and friend, was recommended to essentially “live deliciously” until school began. So yes, maybe I actually did earn my keep for these few months of fêting around, but my feelings and reflection still hold true – a good life to me is one that involves not only pleasure in the company of others and delicious sensory experiences but also time alone, a connection to my inner voice, and the opportunity to put pen to paper.