Christian W.
Photograph provided by Christian W.
If you’re reading this...give the good times some credit.
It was only a couple of years ago that I was back at home, in Kenya, living the best life I could ever have asked for…literally. I mean, the best. I had just graduated high school and I was surrounded by a loving family and friends that I still cherish more than anything in the world. We did everything together; we worked together, did music together, shared our beliefs, our hopes and dreams, our pain, and were there for each other come what may. Through every little thing that happened in our lives, we had a hand holding us through it, celebrating with us in the good times and picking us up in the bad. Every time I had doubts or fears, every time I couldn’t figure it out, every time I almost gave up, and every time I had a complete mental breakdown, someone was there to guide me through it. I was only seconds away from people who knew me as well as anyone possibly could, from people who were willing to sit with me and work through the rough moments.
Then I came to the US for college. I left all of that behind me for a world that was vastly different from what I was used to. It seemed like everyone at Tech had their own tight-knit communities, friendships and relationships. Yet here I was, the fairly quiet and reserved person I’ve always been, trying my hardest to find where I belonged. People seemed to all have their own people, and I wasn’t one to impose.
When it came to my major, architecture, I didn’t have the slightest clue what I was doing. Everyone seemed to have it down and it was intimidating. So I threw myself at my work, way harder than I should’ve, without the family and friends I had before to help me through it. I swung and missed multiple times, until I finally came close to figuring it out, and I got my first A in studio in the first semester of my second year. I began seeing success in my work and being commended for what I’d spent countless hours on. My project was featured in a large exhibition and I was on a team that represented Tech in an architecture competition.
However, I did all this “great” work sitting, for hours on end, alone in my dorm room. Every time I had doubts or fears, every time I couldn’t figure it out, every time I almost gave up, and every time I had a complete mental breakdown, I was by myself. I was eight thousand miles and eight hours of a time difference away from the people who knew me as well as anyone possibly could, from the people who were willing to sit with me and work through the rough moments. All the times that I should’ve spent with them, weekends, breaks, and even my own birthdays, I spent mostly by myself. All the depression that came with it, the glaring feeling of solitude that was impossible to ignore, and the impossibility of having someone by my side to pull me out of it all, I had to figure out on my own.
I was no stranger to this though, I had been doing it for almost two years. The only thing I could do was focus on the little things that brought me joy. In the time that I’d been at Tech, even though I never developed the same ride-or-die friendships that I had before, I had a few people that I knew I could count on, even though we weren’t as close as I’d hoped we’d be. I had family friends from Kenya in the state that gave me a home away from home every once in a while. And there was no greater feeling than when their little kids rushed up to hug me with the most excited looks on their faces every time I came to visit. The few times that I went out with the few people I was fairly close to, the times spent working in studio where we were all freaking out about our work together, the calls I made back home to my friends and family, those moments made me whole. They made me hold on to the hope that things will get better; slowly, but most certainly.
I realized that there is no physical balance between the good times and the bad. It’s not a mathematical equation where the quantity defines you, where one outweighs the other based on numbers alone. The weight of each is solely defined by what importance, attention or focus that you assign to it. It’s easy for one to outweigh the other if you forget about either one, if you let one completely cloud the other. So if you’re reading this, give the good some credit, some merit, some attention, and the focus it really deserves. Hold on to the hope that things will get better; slowly, but most definitely. I can promise you that it’ll give you more joy, even a little bit more, and more is always better than none.
Christian W., Georgia Tech
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