The Cheese

In general I really, really like being me. Even all the things that are probably as obnoxious as hell about me (so sorry to everyone who has ever been on a plane with me) are mostly all right with me, because I think they're funny, or at least interesting. That doesn't mean that I don't realize that I can be a lot to deal with. And that not everyone wants to do that. I say that with total comfort in the fact.

But sometimes it's a little bit lonely. Today, for example. We were talking about mitosis in class, and I felt so cheated and positively shortchanged because we were just being so superficial about it. Like just saying spindle fibers form instead of going all apeshit with k-fibers and plus-end polymerization. It has become very clear to me in the past year that I am at heart a molecular biologist, and that I would be truly happy studying that for the rest of my life. Sometimes I get all dorked up in my cell biology book, just for fun, and happen upon some tidbit that just makes life so much clearer for me, and I want to call someone and share my excitement. Then I realize that there is no one that feels as thrilled as I do about the molecular action of digitalis on cardiac muscle cells, or ion channels, or action potentials. I can bond over microbiology with my dad, of course, and there are a few people with whom I can chat a bit about this kind of stuff, but no one really gets my need to continue to probe biology down to the cellular/molecular level, and the deep satisfaction I get from it. Like soul-level deep, for real. 

Alas, it is a privileged loneliness--to lament that you find yourself isolated by knowledge or education. And I am sure that many in their own fields of study feel this way as well. But it's been a little difficult arriving at my final career choice this past year, giving up the possibility of following a passion for a more practical path. There will be excitement on this path, too, and certainly moments of reflection and existentialism along the way, since that's the way I roll. But never the feeling that I get when I've gone as far down as science can go, looking at the infinitesimally small machinery that turns the wheels of life.