Not This
I’ve been taking a creative nonfiction writing class. Below is a piece I wrote for our memoir assignment on dropping out of science academia.
Not This
I zipped open the flap of the small, tent-like butterfly cage, carefully placing the honey-filled sponge in the bottom. Sometimes, the sticky sponge would flip over onto the bottom of the cage, creating an irresistible trap for the small orange butterflies to fly-paper themselves to. Sometimes, my sticky fingerprints would be enough to do them in. I had to place the green and white cages just so. I had to coax a butterfly to sit on the artist’s sponge and lower their proboscis into the honey water. I had to place the cages in sunspots so the butterflies could warm their insect bodies enough to feed.
This time, I had meticulously set up the cages in the bright Texas sun near the turtle pond of the University of Texas campus. These butterflies, which I had just transported from California to Texas, were not just insects. They were my last hope, my final chance at gathering data for my Ph.D. research.
I would have taken a step back to admire my work, but the weight of stress was too heavy, knotting my organs.
A sudden gust of wind swept in from behind me, toppling the butterfly cages and sending them tumbling into the turtle pond. I stood there, numb, as my last hope of a biology Ph.D. sank beneath the water’s surface. In horror, I stared.
I had become a chameleon, taking on what people told me to be. This was the price of being an academic. I loved science so much that I was willing to sacrifice everything for her. I became a machine in pursuit of a goal, everything else stuffed down.
Any pain I felt at not getting to be as queer and trans as I was in these spaces was brined in alcohol. There were days when I would wake up to the mocking sound of singing birds and trudge up the street to the H.E.B. grocery to grab a bottle of wine. Back at home, I would try to pull the numbness blanket over my head. I felt simultaneously like too much and not enough. I wanted to be a scientist. This monotony, this hostility, this was the cost.
Something in me died watching those butterfly cages disappear under the surface of the turtle pond. It had been dying for a long time. My advisor saying I didn’t have “what it takes” to be in academia. Having my ass grabbed in the hallway of my building. Piling on all of the things I “should” be to be a scientist. A deep part of me cracked. But this time, I let it go.
Thus began my chrysalis phase. I was becoming goo, and I had no idea what kind of person would reappear. My only direction, whispered from tiny flame deep within, was “not this.”
