The small, rectangular piece of formerly white paper is folded into thirds, its photocopied letters and numbers disappearing at the creases from years of friction. The top edge is smudged and crumpled; the paper feels soft, like a broken-in slipper.
Photocopied onto the paper is a miniature Periodic Table of the Elements. It has been in my possession for over 25 years, since I was a sophomore in high school taking Chemistry 1X from a lanky, excitable teacher named Mr. Douglas who gesticulated dramatically during class and liked to tell dorky chemistry jokes; a favorite: “Chemistry takes al-kynes.”
For years the photocopy resided in the plastic pocket of the holder for a credit card-sized calculator that was my constant companion through high school and into my college years at Georgia Tech, even after I acquired my trusty HP-41CX. And though I rarely needed to calculate a molecular weight after the first quarter of my freshman year, I still kept it with me.
I kept it through my 13 quarters sweating through an Electrical Engineering degree at Tech and then moving out to California. I kept it through my job hunt before landing a spot at a Navy research facility here, and I kept it through the next seven years trying to be a good engineer while gradually coming to the realization that contrary to what I had thought since I was 12, this was not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, so now what?
I kept it through my pregnancy and subsequent resignation from the Navy and my years as a stay-at-home mom, and I kept it through the first shaky steps I took towards testing the waters as a writer.
I even kept it through the years I spent since then putting as much distance from my engineering past as I could while I established my writing career, firmly telling anyone who suggested it that no, I didn’t want to be a technical writer and write software documentation.
But when the familiar worn paper surfaced recently, as it does every so often when I am sorting through a pile of stuff after cleaning out my desk, I greeted its appearance as I would an old friend, and was glad that I had never been able to bring myself to toss it in the recycling bin.
That I am the kind of person who has a miniature Periodic Table of the Elements says something about me, something I am finally ready to acknowledge again. It says I am analytical, organized in my way, and like to be prepared for all circumstances. That yes, a part of me is still an engineer, and proud of it.
As a teenager must push away her parents to claim her own identity before being willing to acknowledge the parts of them she carries in herself, I had to separate myself from those elements that seemed so constraining before being ready to acknowledge that I’m glad they are here.
My Periodic Table says that I am more than I appear to be on the surface.
And, as a bonus, I can look up the molecular weight of strontium any time I need to at a moment’s notice.
I apologize for the radio silence since my last post at the end of May. I should just declare a mini-sabatical every year during June, as it seems to be the month when all hell breaks loose, so to speak, and I have difficulty keeping top of everything.
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