I started out the decade pretty damn close to the nadir of my life. In 2010, I was a recluse - living in the upstairs of a house in the middle of North-Central Milwaukee. With the exception of attending seminars, getting groceries, and occasionally visiting my parents - I seldom left the three rooms that were my home. My sleep schedule was shot. I wasn't employed, and had to pay tuition and food on a fixed and rapidly dwindling income. Because I was buying food on price and comfort, and too fearful to go outside, I gained approximately 30 kg in less than a year. Yet that wasn't the worst part of my health that I destroyed.
Paranoia was, and has been, a very real part of who I am. I honestly thought people were constantly judging me - because that was how I lived for so long. Every part of my childhood and teenage years had been scrutinized. My academic performance was akin to my worth as a human being, especially to my parents. In 2010, that hadn't changed. It had only become worse. I thought everyone was judging me. My landlady. My professors. My family. I dropped out because I couldn't take the stress - only to cause more stress by concocting elaborate lies.
Yes, I'm still in school.
No, the thesis will only take a little longer.
No, I've got plenty of money to pay my bills.
Yes, I'm going back to the Park Service in the summer.
In 2011, those lies caught up. I had lied to my family that I was returning to New Mexico to work seasonally for the Park Service. My sister, ever the scientist, double-checked my statements. She knew.
I don't know if it was because I was in denial, or perhaps it was fate, but I decided to follow-through on the lie. I went to Los Alamos. I knew I didn't have a job, but I could - perhaps - lie and say that it wouldn't start for a couple of weeks. Then, in my frantic, addled, state - I concocted a plan. As desperate plans go, it was a garden variety cornucopia of horribly misguided, magical, thoughts.
- Find a long-term hotel
- Stay there long enough to "justify" my non-existent job
- Avoid family, except for - perhaps - mandatory dinners and social events
- Flee to Milwaukee in August, as long as the money held out
- If cash is low... let's just say I'm really scared with where those thoughts were leading me.
I arrived at her home in Los Alamos. and she staged an intervention. Less than a week later I was having regular sessions with a psychologist in Santa Fe. For decades, I had been bottling up my emotions. My life had been layer upon applied layer of false, plastic, stoicism as a substitute for true maturity and self-growth. For nearly two months, that was my life. Weekly psychotherapy coupled with frank discussions with my sister and brother-in-law.
Eventually, I would reconnect with my coworkers in the Park Service. Every Wednesday, I would travel with them and photograph a new place in the state. Then, on June 26, 2011, on a rare weekend where I went to photograph something on my own - the town was engulfed in the Las Conchas Wildfire. The fire ended up being a turning point. I asked for, and received, an emergency reactivation of my Ranger position. I went back to patrolling trails. All the while, still receiving regular therapy and medication.
This went on until January 2012, when I went back to Milwaukee a slightly better person. In March, I decided to spend my Spring Break back at Bandelier National Monument as a full Ranger - both to make a little money and to check up on everyone who had given so much of their time and emotional labor to me just a few months before. On the flight back to Wisconsin, my grandfather passed away. Another nadir.
But, this time, I didn't retreat. I reached out. Talked to my sister. Called my therapist in Santa Fe on the phone. I came to a realization, after a couple months of soul-searching. My career in academia - at that point - was over. I had not been doing it for me. Or even my parents. I had been doing it for the one person who I admired and emotionally connected with more than anyone else on the planet. And now, he was gone...
I knew that I might not finish my degree, but I had finally made peace with my own path. The city had never been for me, and it let me know in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't be welcome back any time soon. I left Milwaukee for good in May of 2013, but not before it had given me a parting gift in the form of a random drive-by shooting while I was picking up Chinese food at a restaurant at the end of my block. I still send my landlady letters from time to time, but I've never been back.
The next few years, while clearer, were no less difficult. The National Park Service pays in scenes and vistas, but little else. Between 2013 and 2017, I only spent one year greater than 20% above the federal poverty line. I lived on food assistance, but couldn't qualify for subsidized medical insurance. I was diagnosed with a pleomorphic adenoma the size of a navel orange (tumor of the salivary gland) due to a lack of adequate dental care. I exhausted my limited savings to have it biopsied and removed.
With the election of the current federal administration, my position in the Park Service was brought to an abrupt and ignominious end. Once again, I was at the doorstep of my sister's house in New Mexico - unemployed. I took a very part-time job for the Chamber of Commerce. I started collecting vintage and antique typewriters. And I started seriously thinking about my future.
On a stab, and at the encouragement of my sister, I reached out to Los Alamos National Laboratory. I got in touch with their Cultural Resource program. They took a chance on me, and hired me as a subcontracted historian. December 20, 2017 - the day I first reported to work - is still one of the happiest days of my life. Since then, I've been so fortunate. I've had a chance to meet incredible people. I've had a chance to go to incredible places. I've been a scholar, a ranger, and a part of a foreign delegation to the Atomic Weapons Establishment.
And they took a chance again, hiring me for the long term. Now I sit, thinking about buying a house. Arranging attendance at academic conferences. And, for the first time in a very long time, the hunger of completing a PhD - for
me - is back.
2010 - 2019
From paranoid recluse, to Historian of Science. One hell of a decade.
But, there's a bigger lesson I want to share.
If you need help. If you're scared, and don't know where to go. If you need someone to talk to. Let the community know. If you're in a hole, let us jump in the hole with you. Because some of us have been in the same holes before, and we'll walk with you to get out of them.
Have a good New Year, and New Decade, everyone.
-Tar
