Icosahedrons and Life Lessons

This is an icosahedron.

I built this as part of dance research, and it took over three hours on a randomly hot March day. After the showcase was over, it took only fifteen minutes to take down.

It is a bit of a metaphor for life I think. As I was building it, I would finish one part only to move on to the next and have the first part fall apart. It took five people and a whole lot of duct tape to get the structure to stay. Even then, it required two chairs to balance.

I was reminded yet again of how I need people to help me, a lot, to get things done. Usually, I tend to be so fiercely independent - I pride myself on self-sufficiency - that I avoid even asking people for help.

Recently, I have been working on asking for help more. Sometimes, it does not work. I visited a professor to ask for direction on a paper, and she said that it was my job. Those situations make me want to curl up in my room and do everything all by myself again.

But other times, asking for help works. In the past week, I had two beautiful midnight conversations with my lovely friend Joyce and hours of motivational study time with Abby. Another friend stayed with me until two in the morning to help me finish a presentation for the Undergraduate Research Arts Showcase on Friday. When I reach out to my staff as an RA, people respond immediately.

Even though I built my first icosahedron on Friday, I feel like I experience the process of building and restructuring and taking down parts of my life all the time. Sometimes, it takes five people holding different parts to get anywhere.

And that's ok.