By Srikha Chaganti

I wished for a prescription to cure me of my senselessness.


For months now, I’ve been working on a comically large crochet project: a navy blue wall hanging longer than my body. I pick it up when I have ample time on my hands or when I want to think about myself as the center of the universe — and these events tend to coincide. I wrap one end of my third skein around my left-hand fingers and hold my extra-ergonomic needle in the other. Today, the yarn is unforgiving. No matter how hard I try to keep it in line, I have had to pause repeatedly to detangle the knot it ends up in no matter how hard I try to keep it in line.

Sometimes, I talk to a friend while working, but this evening my room is silent. I have been stuck in an argument with myself for the better half of my life. I don’t think this next hour will find its conclusion but I hope to gain some insight through the double stitches I form.

My life has been staunchly ruled by a series of truth tables, both mathematical and emotional. Each major decision is entirely formulaic. The sensible outcome usually occurs. However, as I grow out of adolescence, my grasp on emotional sensibility has only faltered. The needle slips out of my hand the more I relax.

Earlier that day, I came across a short video on using knot theory to detangle yarn. I got excited at the possibility that I could take the mathematical proportions that already ruled my life and apply them to reality. Against all physical proof, it didn’t work. I still had to pause and manually detangle my skein.

As I worked my fingers mindlessly, I reminisced other times that I was unable to apply logic so universally. The year before, I moved in with my best friend. Then too, what should have worked didn’t. The change in the most central friendship of my life had brought about a sudden rush of irrationality.

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August 2022, Move-In Day

I pinned the last postcard to the wall and stumbled down my unnecessarily tall bunk bed, hitting my knees twice. The 200 square-foot-room was the worst possible shape it could be and the only redeeming quality was the especially high ceilings. On the other side of the room was the mini-fridge, her bed, desk, and the heavy door.

Supposedly, it wasn’t a good idea to live with your ‘best friend’, but at that point, I didn’t know what a ‘best friend’ was. I kept people close to me for as long as I could, but she redefined this notion. I shared everything with her. Granted, there was a lot about her I didn’t understand or felt was difficult to agree with, and I’m sure she felt the same. However, we found value in listening, disagreeing, and occasionally, screaming in excited agreement.

Kicking her dirty white Converse off, she asked me about the 11 a.m. class I barely made it to. I told her about the guy I had been eyeing in the lecture, the fascination I had with the day’s focus (introductory mathematical analysis), and the embarrassing impostor syndrome I felt there.

As I talked, I tried not to look at her desk littered with schoolwork, snacks, and makeup — mostly so I didn’t try to clear everything off the table. I don’t think I’ve shared more words with a singular person, but I couldn’t fathom the idea of simply telling her to put things away. I didn’t think my reluctance would ever change.

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November 2023, Our First Apartment

The day felt unnecessarily long, even though I only spent three hours outside. Usually, I would throw my backpack on the grey couch and climb over her unnecessary amount of plushies after the day had ended. At some point in time, I had looked forward to talking about my day with her, regardless of stress, distance, and sadness. But today, and last Tuesday, and three weeks before that, I didn’t want to do that anymore. Nothing was truly wrong between us. I knew she would still make it a point to ask about my day, but her question would be short and so would my answer. I decided to go into my room.

My stomach wouldn’t stop growling, but I was too cold to stand in the kitchen. Importantly, there were also conversations I wanted to avoid waiting for me in there. Even my jeans felt chilly against my legs, and I bunched my too-short throw blanket in my hands while I lay down. I replayed the entirety of my friendship with her, making sure to analyze every conversation, every hug, every text. Reasonably, if something was off, I should be able to place a moment when something had shifted. My stomach turned with more than hunger as I couldn’t realize what I was upset about despite this formulaic, fool-proof method of discovery. I knew my expectations for our friendship couldn’t stay constant when nothing else in life was — but I was still unsettled.

The sheets were clammy all of a sudden, and I just wanted to force-feed myself leftovers to get rid of any feelings in my tummy. There was no world in which I wanted anybody to know I was feeling this way, but it was getting difficult to ignore. I wished for a prescription to cure me of my senselessness.

–

Three more rows of the tapestry are finished now, the semicircles begin to look like fins, and my thumb feels a little sore. The relentless knots that I keep encountering shouldn’t exist. While I work, it feels necessary to be critical of my lines of reasoning and trains of thought. I couldn’t trace why I hate making myself vulnerable in front of the single person who had seen so much of me, despite the turmoil my overthinking causes. It didn’t make any sense, but I didn’t want to confront these parts of me and it felt reasonable to keep them isolated.

I know it is absurd to rely solely on logic when navigating life— I feel naive, stupid, and ashamed in admitting that I want to. The alternative senselessness isn’t exactly providing any tangible benefits either. I feel like I’mlosing control of my own life. The fact that I cannot pull the yarn with ease, despite every effort to keep it untangled, has me biting at the skin of my lips with my teeth. Lost in memories of emotional turbulence, I wonder what leaning into feeling can offer. I start frogging parts of my project, hoping for a reminder of what passion and intensity brings to life. I recall the single successful encounter I’ve had with giving in, one I always revisit. My choice to study mathematics was impractical, and a decision of the heart.

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August 2024, By Myself

The morning of my flight from YYZ to DFW, I cried by myself for the first time. I had been in Toronto for the summer, studying math, and the day to return home had come. My eyes were dry from a lack of sleep, my arms were tired from giving long hugs, and I wept for an hour. My new skeins of yarn sat awkwardly in my single suitcase — this was the summer I started crocheting. I watched the sunrise in my dusty student apartment for the last time and left my  Muji notebook out so it would be the last thing I packed.

Three months past, I had never been more unsure of who I was, what I wanted, and how I would do it. Rubbing the chalk off my hands in math class, I was excited even though I knew I was nowhere near the smartest in the room. In fact, I was excited because I knew I was nowhere near the smartest. Excitement was insufficient, however, in terms of what was necessary for the sacrifice that was dedicating my life to the study of a subject. Unfortunately, it felt like excitement was all I had, and in turn, my nights became filled with the desire to find an alternative to the exhilaration that mathematics offered: something more practical.

In class, eating dinner, before sleeping, I contemplated my future. I spent at least 200 hours trying to come up with the most optimized path for my future. This was excruciatingly confusing: I had never liked something so much that I found it impossible to imagine a world where I was happy without it. I never solved the puzzle and I never truth tabled my way out of my love for mathematics. That spring, I naively allowed myself to sit in the math building and pursue the study with everything I had. The following summer, I participated in my first real research experience. In late June, I began to lose the slight taste of loneliness in my mouth. My gelato tasted sweeter and even though I squinted in the sun, I was already smiling.

The six-inch notebook I had left out while packing was filled from start to finish using three navy ink fills and growth.

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Although I am battling sleep now, I remember why I picked up the yarn in the first place. I feel itchy at the thought of vulnerability, but each time I feel like the argument is settled in favor of rationality, I remember mathematics and its senseless victory. This is the singular time I have allowed myself to lose to logic, free-falling into any sentiments of impracticality. It doesn’t matter whether it makes sense. I love it regardless. What am I so terrified of —  living?

Simple computation can’t navigate all consciousness, but emotion is not often triumphant in my life. Why do I find myself in such discomfort feeling anything, and alternatively, what are the true benefits of feeling everything? I return my project to its bag and my mind to its questions.  

I am halfway through now, but I am still struggling to see the blue fish. ■