Learning Through Injury:
“I Nearly Killed Myself Over a Girl”
I’ve always hated social interactions with people that involve talking about emotions and feelings. I’d rather make something for someone rather than saying “happy birthday”, “thank you”, “I’m sorry” or even on rare occasions “I love you”.
During my high school senior year I became close with a girl, Anabelle. There was just something about her that would cause me to become an illegible blubbering butterfly stomached mess, maybe it was her personality or maybe the way she looked or maybe something completely different, I have no idea.
Whenever we talked or chatted online there would always be a disconnect between my brain and the output of my keyboard. My brain would direct my hands to type “do you want to go out on a date?” but the output on my screen would invariably be “I think you don’t need to put that comma there” or ” have you tried turning your computer off and turning it on again?”
I’ve done some really stupid things that I regret, nearly killing myself being one of them, not saying what I felt being another. The month leading up to prom me in my infinite wisdom decided that I would make a silver necklace in addition to my promposal “poster” a wooden sign made from black walnut engraved with an intricate flower and inlayed with crushed marble. Fun fact: Silver has a melting point of about 960 degrees Celsius but the impurities present in silver vaporizes at a much lower temperature. Melting silver from an unknown origin was probably not the brightest idea I ever had.
The moment I knew that something was wrong with the melted silver it was already too late. I thought to myself “oh shit” followed by a string of expletives in Chinese and Taiwanese as I sprinted towards the bathroom. Even though I wore a respirator it was as if a thousand tiny needles were being pushed into my skull, a rotary hammer being bashed continuously against the insides of my eyeballs, and golf balls being forced into my throat all at the same time. I spent the hours alternating between spewing forth blood streaked vomit and choking. Because of the amount of time and blood I spent making the necklace I forgot about the social interactions required for any type of relationship, losing sight of what was important.
Even though I did eventually finish my necklace this time in eighteen karat rose gold with a sterling silver chain. I failed to realize the importance of verbal communication. We had an argument during the summer over a trivial matter and mutually blocked each other on every available social media site. Instead of focusing my attention on making irrelevant things I learned that I should have spent the time and talked. It took me a near death experience and a lot of introspection to finally go out of my comfort zone and learn to communicate verbally about my feelings to others. I came to realize that a simple I’m sorry, or a heartfelt word means more than a hundred hours spent casting a gold necklace. I still make things for fun (just ask my roommate about the wood our room) but I’ve learned to not shy away from a conversations.