Emotional Erosion

 

“…Some of you will be so changed
by weathers and wanderings
that even your closest friends
will have to learn your features
as though for the first time…”

 

I’ve been revisiting this stanza from the poem, Passover Remembered (Bozarth, Alla) a lot lately.  I’ve been considering my experiences as a JV and how I am worried that I’ve shifted too much.  This is in the forefront of my mind this month especially as I prepare to be reunited with some college friends at Fairfield’s Alumni Weekend. 

When I examine how I am living my life today compared to how I envisioned my life as a senior in college there isn’t much overlap.  What sticks out to me in this stanza is the word weathers.  It took me back to 4^th grade, when I learned about weathering and erosion.  Initially when considering erosion in nature I come up with negative connotations surrounding destruction, but I have started to rationalize the necessity of the process and the beauty that can accompany the altered landscape.  While perusing the internet I found an article discussing the duo of river erosion and landslides’ role in maintaining some of the world’s most iconic mountain ranges.  This cycle is credited with maintaining mountains, but erosion itself proves the malleability of the Earth’s surface.  I think our minds, hearts, and thoughts are malleable like the Earth.  My one-year-plus of JVC has eroded the exterior layers of my metaphorical heart. 

And this makes me nervous, because it makes me think I feel too much now.   I am nervous because I am not sure what landscape my heart is taking.  I wonder how the men I work with will continue to erode the crust of my heart, and transform it into something unrecognizable.  I am the most nervous about not being recognized by myself and by my family and friends.  I am afraid of becoming a stranger in the lives of those I value from my past. 

There are these conflicting moments of dual clarity and confusion regarding my emotional and intellectual erosion.  As I walked home from the subway after work, I was thinking about the physical property of volume.  All of the sudden it hit me:  I can't remember how to solve for volume.  I was seriously shocked, and as I walked down Girard Avenue my mind was without an answer as it feverishly searched for a formula.  All I could think was, "Holy shit!  I've lost all of my knowledge and all I have are feelings!"  As I turned onto 18th Street I came up with a solution. 

D = m/v

Just manipulate that equation.  During that final stretch home, I gained a new appreciation for the saying, "if you don't use it you lose it."  I use my empathy regularly at Bethesda Project.  So I suppose that this consistent use of empathy and compassion are the two rivers that I feed, and are responsible for the erosion of my heart, and the reshaping of my life.