Little girl with a big brain

My brain is too pooped to study tonight. More tomorrow. Exactly 36 hours until the test.

But I have been filled with profound, philosophical thoughts.

Something has changed about how I see myself. Or, rather, something has returned to how it used to be. Long ago, I was a short girl with eyeglasses who always knew the right answers to questions in school, and scared away all of the boys. I did not lose this image until my teens, when I forcibly derailed my mind with drugs and superficial inanities, in the company of pathological underachievers. Then - joy! - I finally felt attractive and female and desirable.

I resented not having the innate confidence those cheerleaders and socialites seemed to have. I longed for love so badly that I took it in whatever form it presented itself, never screening out a single soul who showed interest in me. I met some pretty ragged souls in that way. And when I realized the million things we did not have in common, and got disgusted with them, they were always bitter and angry with me. No surprise there.

I was smart, but I fought who I was, tooth and nail. I turned about-face from anything intellectually demanding. I alienated the few smart friends who had high hopes for me. I disappointed everyone, most especially myself. I just wanted love.

But love that never made demands on me left me cold in the end. I was never happy with a person who could be happy with me as I was. I wasn’t happy with me as I was. So if they were, I thought they were stupid for it. Pretty impossible situation to put someone in, but it certainly explains the appeal of kink, of having expectations which I routinely fail to live up to completely. Far better to have someone wanting more of me than I feel I can live up to, than less. The former keeps me hungry for approval. The latter finds me bored and listless.

I’m about to start a Ph.D. program. Hopefully. I’m taking all the right actions, and hoping. But I want to take the actions; there is no longer any doubt. The field I have chosen is fascinating to me. I know exactly which professor I want to work with, and he has already told me the topic that he is ready for me to start on.

I do not expect to attract ever more men, as I plunge headlong into three more years of this agony... as I increase my supply of socks to wear with my Birkenstocks... as I continue not to invest money in makeup or professional haircuts... as I stock my wardrobe with modest and unassuming neutrals, showing no cleavage. I expect to become ever more eccentric, and incapable of remembering what it was to conform to anything. I expect the range of people with whom I can discuss my work at length to become progressively smaller. I expect the number of raised eyebrows at hearing what I'm researching to become progressively larger. And I expect to go through life as a little girl with a big brain, constantly filled with amazing ideas and insights and potential discoveries.

I thought I didn’t know myself anymore, but I do. I am “Shorty” and “Four Eyes.” That was how I was born. That’s how I am going to live.