Anyone close to me knows that my memory is nearly airtight. I quote conversations from years ago word-for-word to my friends’ faces before realizing that they don’t even remember the exchange, let alone its exact wording. I pass tests by pulling images of slideshows out of the depths of my brain. My memory is my lifeboat, and without it, I’d probably drown.

The one thing that escapes me is math.

I despise math. I’ve taken classes with some amazing teachers and done fine in high-level courses, but that does nothing to dull my passionate hatred for math. Every year without fail I start crying mid-test, much to the dismay of my teachers and my own self-esteem, and I’ve left all too many questions with only a singular doodled sad face. The horrible math class to end all math classes (sorry, Dr. Steele) was my junior-year pre-calculus class. It comes back to haunt me only occasionally.

One time, I was reminded of it when I was watching an interview with my favorite musician and celebrity crush Julien Baker, who I’ve gained a reputation for talking about and admiring a bit too much. In the interview, Baker compared life to a sine curve, one of the easier pre-calc graphs to memorize. Still, I shuddered a little when she drew a sine curve in the air with one hand.

The eloquent way she executed her comparison will stick in my memory forever, though. She told her interviewer that “we are capable of such hurt and awful fear and hopelessness as human beings, but as deep down as we can get, the inverse has to also always be true. It’s like a mathematical balance. As much as we’re able to experience bad and ugliness and pain, we can experience that amount of joy, and it’s worth sticking around for.”

I’m not always a joyful person. I entered high school riddled with anxiety, having retreated so far into my shell that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pull myself back out. I rarely talked and any low grade on a test would send me spiraling, worrying that I was letting down everyone who thought I was smart. I’ve found ways to deal with these feelings, but I still sometimes find myself at the bottom of Julien Baker’s metaphorical sine curve. 

That’s when I have to force myself to think about math. If I really have hit the bottom of the curve, it’s only a matter of time until things start looking up. Bad pre-calc grades didn’t stop me from getting into the college of my dreams. Despite my quiet disposition, I’ve made close friends who don’t mind my anxious tendencies. I’ve always hated overly positive cliches like “this too shall pass,” but I think it’s time I admit there’s some truth in those sayings. The view from the peak of the sine curve is beautiful, and it’s worth sticking around for.