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I know i’ve mentioned several times on this blog that college was really hard for me. If I haven’t also mentioned why, it boils down to being a period that brought a lot of difficult lessons.

I was a pretty intense kid (mom, i know you are laughing at the understatement). I wanted to do it all, and thanks to many fortunate circumstances, i was able to pull it off more or less all of the time. Foolish as I now realize it was, I was completely convinced that there were no limits on what i could juggle. And then I went to duke, where all 1600 of my classmates were at least as good at being me as i was. i allocated my energy poorly. i took on too many activities, and it didn’t seem weird to any of my new friends because they were even more type-A. i averaged 3 hours sleep on weeknights, sleeping through sundays, and was always exhausted in every possible sense of the word. engineering classes do not grade generously and i had trouble focusing on the material. i chose to focus on the areas of my life in which i was kicking ass, dug myself into a big hole in the others, and spent a great deal of time refusing to accept that something would need to give in order to get the important things back on track.

I’m incredibly stubborn, or at least, was, and it took a long time to break me of my bad habits. But eventually i accepted that perfection was a lost cause and i needed to focus on balance. College is where i first learned my limits, where i learned that i’m good for more than running shit all the time. The experience humbled me and rebuilt me as someone I think I like a lot more.

i was thinking about that time at the beach this weekend. I’ve realized that the feeling I walk around with these days—the floaty post-traumatic response where you are more capable than usual of seeing all the best and worst things in life—is the same feeling I had through most of college. It was a hard time, sure, and I don’t at all think that traumatic is too strong a word, but I also had some of my most sincerely happy times there.

i worried i’d lost myself in college before i could buy myself the luxury of chilling out and reflecting on the experience. after the diploma was safely on mom’s entertainment center and i’d had some time to myself, i realized that in many ways, i’d found myself in college. can you really know yourself if you’ve never felt out of control? if you’ve never seen yourself in that position?

i can’t help but suspect that coping with dad’s death is going just like that. you’re never the same at the other end of the tunnel, but you do understand a whole lot more.

i don’t know that i like myself better now than i did at eighteen but i think i probably do. what i do know for sure is that having met both mes, i prefer the older version. i’m never as comfortable as some people seem to be with pointing out upsides to dad’s death, but i really believe i’ll prefer the me who’s lived through it to the hypothetical me who didn’t have to.

So that’s the me who’s doing well with things. This is the me who isn’t so much:

I got kicked off the internet last night and everyone on my IM list appeared offline. That was the first time that I’d seen dad’s screenname since he died. For so many years, he gave me crap for not writing more, and I gave him crap for not getting on AIM. It’s not my fault that you insist on being a square, Dad, I’m on AIM all the time and I’d love to talk to you there. He didn’t want to commit to a screen name or download more software, and this was a sticking point for both of us.

But eventually he did it, to be closer. Having not fallen far from the stubborn tree, it meant a lot to me, even then.

I had a burning need to get dad’s number out of my cell phone—I did it in the first 2 hours after i learned that i wouldn’t be using it anymore. But that was so less personal, so much less history there. McTom1224 represented a lot more.

I felt like I should want to delete that too, but it didn’t feel as right or obvious as the phone number. I decided to hold off because Joe was on his way over and I didn’t want to rush the decision. My eyes filled up with tears and I thought i’d cry, but i couldn’t. Writing about it now, though, i find i can’t not.

Everything continues to be a mystery, but still, nothing has been as bad as i expected. i thank Dad for that.