In Which Bourgie Writes an Open Letter to A Past Love

This…is a story.

…within a story.

(Because…y’know…I started this blog as a way of telling a story. So then this is a separate story. Just keep reading.)

This is a story about a lost love. About a relationship that I treasured. That I revered. That captured my soul and shook it to its core, its soul (Soul Inception, if you will). This is a story about Bourgie’s relationship with Neuroscience.

Oh, it was a very confusing affair indeed. At first, it started out as some serious pre-Empire Strikes Back Han Solo/Princess Leia type hatred. I’d have high school teachers parading Neuro around and describing him as this engaging and witty. Many would call him engrossing. But I found him boring and contrived; a scruffy-looking nerfherder, if you will.

Good times.

One rainy November afternoon, though, we were forced to study for an exam together. Water pelted the windows and the power was out in my shitty, freezing-as-fuck apartment, and we got to know each other by candle light. And suddenly, it just clicked. We stayed up all night exchanging ideas, reading, talking.

And before I knew it, I had begun to fall for him. Anytime I learned something new about Neuro, my heart skipped a beat, my palms would sweat, my breath would quicken. In learning more about him, I learned more about myself. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I was always finding excuses to ditch people so that I could spend more and more time with him.

And then, after years of stable, sexy, crazy, foaming-at-the-mouth happiness…

I don’t know what happened. Or when it happened. Or why it happened. But slowly, we began to drift apart. We stopped talking as much. I began realizing that Neuro was kind of a lazy douche. I began feeling like all the time and energy I was putting into Neuro was for naught, because fuck him, what the hell was he doing for me? I was growing tired of him and his lack of energy. What the fuck could I do with him? I mean, here I was, putting countless hours of my precious time into our relationship, skipping out on spending time with my friends and my partner, and now you’re telling me that I can’t even do anything with him unless I make this huge seven-year commitment? Are you high? I mean, sure, we had a little fun, but did I really want to commit that effort into our relationship at the expense of my relationship with others?

Besides, what if there’s more out there? Microbiology and chemistry were both totally DTF and I still might have wanted to sow some serious, scholastic oats.

So I broke up with him. I told him that it was cliched, yes, but that it really wasn’t him, it was me. I couldn’t be tied down to just one discipline forever! I was young and wild at heart! I needed excitement! I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.

And so I went on an academic fuckfest, devouring anything and everything that I could to further my intellectual pursuit. I dicked around with industrial organization, fooled around with international political economy, took a fantastic lover in quantum physics, had a fun romp with sociology, a good roll in the hay with medicine, a bit of an awkward threesome with law and philosophy, and an incredibly uncomfortable one-night stand with computer science.

…yeah we just…sort of pretend it never happened.

…

Ahem.

Anyway.

Now I realize that all I want is Neuroscience. That’s all I’ve wanted all along with yes, of course, the occasional FWB kind of relationship with some other disciplines. But ultimately, I really do want to commit! I miss our late night conversations, our pedagogical trysts! Sweet, merciful, crap, what was I thinking??

And here’s the worst part: I’m afraid that it’s too late. This isn’t going to take standing in the rain with a boom box singing the words for me a la Say Anything. No, this is going to take a lot of work. Hours of unpaid experience. Countless weeks of rigorous and faithful determination to study for standardized tests and then real tests and then more tests and fuck.

I’m afraid that I’ve been out of the game for too long. I’m scared, Neuro, really scared, because while I might know stuff, I don’t know stuff, which means that all I really know is how much I don’t fucking know.

But I hope that you’ll take me back one day, Neuro, when you’re ready, because I’m ready. Just give me the time to get my shit together. But I promise you that I will commit and I hope, Neuro, that you’ll still be there waiting.