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My brother is one of the most fascinating human beings I have come to meet. Yes, we are quite similar. We both wear size 2 skinny jeans from the Gap, revel in sardonic irony, and love good vegetarian food. I mean, we couldn’t be more similar, except for the fact that he plays in a metal band, and I find comfort in Bon Iver. With that small detail aside, the Coghlan children are one—a united front.
He is three years my senior, yet one year behind academically. Curious. To sum it up, I have always been the one trudging down the path more traveled—the path of linear academic normalcy. I am not ashamed. I pride myself on this fact. I am a true scholar.
He’s caught up to me though, and I’m feeling the pressure. We both crave “Coghlan, Ph.D,” but who’s it going to be? I must trump him. There is no other choice. He has always been a bit cooler, what with his music fan base and extreme veganism. Who can touch that? I’ve tried of course.
I lived with one of my best friends in great apartment in downtown Burlington this past summer. My job: instating a literacy program amongst Somali-Bantu refugees in the Old North End. No big deal. It was the best summer of my young life.
I also had my chakras (seven energy centers located within the body) opened and went vegan.
It was the summer of pushing my hipster envelope as far as it could possibly go. So, I allowed a strange man to open a few of my most beloved chakras, and stopped consuming all animal products. The connection between the two might not be glaringly obvious, but my overall chi was most certainly funked with. I was left only a shell of a Sarah.
Tragic, really.
I was always the girl at slumber parties who claimed to not believe in the mystifying spectacle of the Ouija board. I am now a believer. This healer most certainly opened a spinning sphere of bioenergetic activity in my being. But, I had some sort of adverse reaction to it, ultimately manifesting itself in a nervous breakdown. I kid you not, I thought I was going to die.
While engaging in a fierce Scrabble session, I knew something was off when my highest words score came from "corn." Usually a cutthroat player, I just didn't have it in me. And that is the moment it happened. Tears streamed down my face, curplunking on the board--I ran to my bedroom where I wept uncontrollably into the arms of my best friend for 60 straight minutes.
I wanted my chakras closed.
So that didn’t work out. Neither did the veganism. It’s a shame really. I was loving my new-found sense of self control, until there came a day when my pH balance was severely shaken and strange things started brewing inside me. Perhaps it was a combination of too much soy and my recently released bioenergy. But, whatever the cause, I was cured with a cup of yogurt.
This time of exploration taught me a lot. I function best within the boundaries of balance. I just need to accept this fact. So what—my brother has gone nine years without a single animal product—his chemical make-up clearly must differ from mine. I can’t help that. Besides, I’ll be the first to obtain an advanced degree, and that’s all that really matters here. The rest is just frivolous, really. |
