#20 Soraya

Hello, I've been getting the feeling that you've been avoiding my calls, but.

No really ever gives you that idea.

So you mean my my paranoia is is true? You have been avoiding my calls. That means everyone's really out to get me.

Do any of your friends like you anymore?

I have a don't ask, don't tell policy about it from Gimlet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Soirea. In the fall of twenty fifteen, Sorea began her freshman year at Harvard. She was studying history, a subject that she's loved ever since she was a kid.

The person that gave me my love of history was my dad. We would always watch documentaries together, which is one of my favorite things.

Shortly after getting to Harvard, Soria met Professor Alyssa mount Pleasant. Soria liked the Lissa right away. She was a Native American history professor studying indigenous people. Siria also wanted to tell the stories of people without a complete written history, in Sorea's case, African American people.

She was doing the type of history I wanted to do, in the type of history that I love. She is a woman of color, and you know it's game recognizing game.

You felt a kinship.

Yeah, like I don't even know how old she is, but she seems young, which was really inspiring.

Alyssa was writing a book about a tribe called the hoden n Ashone, and she was looking for a research assistant, someone to sift through microfilm of thousands of newspapers from the early eighteen hundred.

She said that she didn't usually hire freshmen, but she was going to give me a chance, and she thought I was, I don't know, charming, the guiling. She didn't say these words out loud. I don't know, I don't know why you would hire me, but she did.

For reasons Soireya couldn't quite fathom. Alyssa had taken a chance on her, and for Sorea, that felt like an act of kindness. She was working alongside a mentor who saw something in her and contributing to a project that felt meaningful. Life seemed to be working out great. Sorea should have been thrilled.

I found myself in a new school, surrounded by new people, things that I really loved, But I found myself very unhappy.

Sarria had struggled with feelings of depression since she was a kid, but she'd always been able to pin those feelings on the world around her. Classes that weren't engaging, relationships that weren't fulfilling. But with her arrival at Harvard, she hoped that finally things might fall into place.

But like every time I woke up there, it didn't feel right. You know. I don't know how to explain it, other than like whenever I look in the mirror, I don't feel like a Harvard student, Like I'm black, I'm Arab, I'm a woman. I just I felt bad about all of that, and I couldn't stop myself from feeling bad about it. And I felt sad because I felt bad that I felt bad, and it felt like things were supposed to get better, because on paper, my life had gotten better. But nothing changed.

Siriah stopped going to class, stopped showering, stop sleeping. Sometimes for almost a week straight. At night, she'd stay up reading trashy romance novels and watching conspiracy videos on YouTube.

And there was something comforting about sort of being adjacent to crazy when you're feeling crazy. There would be long stretches of time when I wouldn't leave my room one of my roommates had left her keys in her room, and so she sent out a text on our group chat and was like, hey, is anyone in the room. And she stood outside our door knocking and knocking and knocking and knocking, and I didn't move. I couldn't. I couldn't muster the energy to talk to anyone or to

When talking with me about her depression. Soirea is always pretty even keeled until the subject of Alyssa comes up.

I just kept showing up to meetings, saying that I was doing things and like it was going great.

The truth was that shortly after being hired because of her depression, Sorey's work researching Alyssa's book ground to a halt. But just the same, she kept on meeting with Alyssa. It was the only time all week that she showered, that she got dressed and left her room.

Because I just wanted to meet with her. And for those moments when I was meeting with her and we were talking and we were sharing. It just felt in those moments like this is how I wanted my life to be, but I couldn't have it outside of these moments that were in the end a lie.

Eventually, Harvard tried to intervene, first with emergency meds and then psychiatric treatment, but nothing was helpful and in the end Sorea was left with no choice but to drop out. She returned to her childhood home, where she spent the next two months in bed. Since dropping out, Sirey's depression is lifted. A new therapist, then a new job of helped. She says she generally feels good about things, except for one particular thing. Sarria abandoned the project without ever saying

I've been carrying it with me in my backpack for two years.

You've literally been carrying, like literally carrying it around as a weight on your back. So what do you want.

I need to know whether or not I can make it right by finishing this.

By this, she means the research work she promised Alyssa. Soirea doesn't just want to apologize. She wants to present Alyssa with a bold gesture. And as far as gestures go, the bold kind are my favorite. So, in answer to the question I've not yet been asked, yes, Sirea, I will be your life coach, helping you at every turn

I can't, I won't, I could, I won't.

I get Sorea's hesitation. There's nothing more soul deadening than mindlessly repeating other people's slogans and catchphrases, of which it's time once again for an important message from a sponsor that I personally care about. Soria gets started on the project. On the flash drive she's been carrying around since she left Harvard. There are sixty two PDF files, each one

And we'll find this week. I think it is in the doing that I will find some piece. So I'm excited and I.

So far life coaching is a breeze for sure, easier than baseball or football coaching. But by week two Soreya and I hit a snag.

It's just God, I hate this about me so much. I basically litigate with myself. I'm like, you know, if you start working at four and you do two hours of work, it'll only be That's fine. It's six pm. If you do two hours, that's only eight o'clock. It's four am. Okay, Soiria, you have to do it now or you're not going to be able to sleep tonight. It's six am. Well, you really can't sleep now because you have to be up for work in two hours. It's eight am, and then I went to work. I went to work.

According to ancient Greek myth, as punishment for betraying the gods, Sisyphus was forced to spend eternity pushing a rock up a hill, only to have the rock roll back down again when it reached the top. It was hell in the form of boredom and meaninglessness. Like Sisyphis, Soria sees no end to her toil. She's sorting through mountains of articles about lost wallets and lost umbrellas, the War of eighteen twelve, stolen horses, and scalpings. She scrolls and scrolls

Pretty? Pretty shit? Not good?

But according to the Internet, a life coach has to be persistent, and so we keep checking in even when Sorey is out of town. Week eleven.

I did not work on this project this week. Week twelve, this week has not been productive.

Week thirteen, this week did not go to plan. Week fourteen. Hello, Hey, this is Jonathan speaking.

Oh oh crap, I totally forgot about this.

As a life coach. I'm also like Sissyphist. I'm pushing a rock up a hill, and my rock is Soreya pushing her rock up a hill. Should I be continuing to try to inspire you? I?

Uh, it's not you, It's me.

It is me, isn't it? Do you know? Are you familiar with the quote from Highlander? There is no trial? Wait? Did I get there is no try. There can only be here. Oh no, sorry, it's Yoda. Do are not? Sorry? Do or do not? There is no try?

Thank you. I'm surprised you didn't try to imitate Yoda. If I'm gonna be honest, I'm a little disappointed.

You done on showing Soireyah that there is no try. Is something that I must actually do rather than try to do. I must do to do, do or do not? There is no there is no try, do or do not. Wait. Let me I can nail this. Hang on, I've never really tried. You know when you can hear the voice in your head that you're trying to imitate, but you can't get it out, but you just know it's in there. What cannot be done? I always do what cannot be done. Huh, why did I start this? Anyone?

What is this? It definitely feels like an intervention.

Just because people are intervening they care about you, doesn't make it an intervention. Hang on a second, So the question of why did she start this? Anyone? I invite Sorea into the studio or a stage, a full on mo ALTI media event, or at least a single media event. I play Sireya some audio tape from the one person she needs to hear from most. I thought that maybe the best person for you to hear right now would be you.

This is an intervention.

Siria shakes her head and I press play, and together we listened to a conversation that we had back when this whole thing began.

I think it is in the doing that I will find some piece, you know.

In his essay about Sisyphis, the French existentialist Albert Camier writes that Sisyphis's real struggle wasn't that he had to roll a heavy rock up a hill without ever getting to the top, but that he had to somehow find meaning in the rock rolling. Siria has lost sight of the thing that was bringing meaning to her rock rolling, lost sight of Alyssa, Like I don't even know how.

Old she is, but she seems young, which was really inspiring.

She was past Soria talks about how important Alyssa was to her, how kind she was when she was at her lowest, and as past Soria speaks present, Siria covers her face.

I need to know whether or not I can make it right by finishing this.

I believe that person was talking from the heart Soria looks down at the table. She's quiet for a while, thinking about Alyssa. And when they first met.

I was feeling very bad about myself, and so this job like it was this moment my freshman year. Ah shit, it's like, God, she's a deeply nice person.

So what are we gonna do? Sorea looks at me like I'm an idiot. Then her smile widens, and I'm.

Gonna boom boom boom bang it out.

Who's gonna boom boom boom bang it out?

I'm going to boom boom boom bang it out.

See how did that feel?

About as good as I imagined it too.

We're gonna boom boom boom bang it out.

I'm past the fifty percent march.

When we check back in a week later, it seems Soray has gotten back what I will heretoforeth refer to as after carefully vetting my language with Gimlet Media's paralegal department. The look of the leper The glass is half empty or full, whichever The optimistic part is. You know you have emptied this glass of nagging, guilt and shame so that it's half empty, which is good.

Okay again in the colloquial spear of things that would sound really really negative.

Are you sure?

I don't know.

Yeah, I think you might have that backwards And from here, the half empty glass just keeps getting emptier.

Week fifteen, I would say I'm at fifty two percent.

Week sixteen, I'm at sixty percent. Week seventeen. I'm gonna put it out sixty two Week eighteen.

The seventy five percent mark.

It isn't always easy. There are still stops in starts. Sorea gets tired, Sorea gets bored, Soria gets busy, but slowly. Soraya nears the finish line. Week twenty four.

I think I'm going to get there. I'm almost done. I think I have two I have two of those files left. I can do that.

Week twenty six, So, yeah, what do you have to tell me?

I'm done?

You're done?

I'm done?

After the break? Alyssa, Yes, it's a boy call around Train forty three and stops at Newark, Chanson, Philadelphia. Is that us? My history is Melissa is currently doing academic research in Philadelphia. So Sorey and I meet at New York's Penn Station, and right and early we board a train to Philly. As Soreya's life coach. I'm a nervous wreck, so I can only assume that Sorea must be feeling three to six times as anxious as I am. I try to soothe her. Do you find that sounds soothing?

I was breathing out.

Gotta confused. Sometimes Sirea didn't get any sleep the night before interfugue state of sleep deprivation. I can only assume that Sorea must be experiencing this train trip, not as an actual train trip, but as a symbolic and surreal train trip of self discovery. We chug along past Newark, New Jersey, home of the first successful submarine voyage, Elizabeth, New Jersey, birthplace of the first ice cream soda in New Jersey. Rahway, New Jersey, originally called spank towns by

I miss the sweats carrying pizza luck because there's.

A guy that's like cheap beer at a frat party. It's all rising up in me, running through the dorm in my underwear hacky sack and my underwear underwear pong underwear runs no pants parties, all the college things I experienced in movies, but not in my five years at the Sir George Williams campus of downtown Montreal's Concordia University. What good was my education? Anyway? As for Soirea, after being out of school for a couple of years, now, I wonder what it's like for her to be back

It's literally exactly.

I've arranged to meet Alyssa at the Entertainment and Community Education Center on the edge of campus. We're a few minutes early, so Sirea decides to use the extra time to run into the bathroom, but just as she steps into the hallway, she comes face to face with a wavy haired woman wearing narrow, black framed glasses.

Hi, how are you.

It's Alyssa.

How are you good. It's so good to see you. It's good to see you.

Too, send Soria stand around awkwardly in the hallway, not sure what to say. As they fall into silence, Sorea's life coach springs into action. To meet you now, Alyssa and Srea and I stand around awkwardly in the hallway, not sure what to say.

Yeah, I'm good, We'll take care of Melissa.

Sorry that you could do your twilet and be at your best. Great, come on in. When Sarria returns from the bathroom, she finds Alyssa already seated at a large round table. Sia sits beside her. Together, they try to figure out how to begin.

How have you been? I've been good, I've been busy, I've been I've been well. How are you I've been I've been both up and down? Yeah, I really, I mean what comes to mind is that I left you high and dry. And by the time.

We met, Soria gets right into it, telling Alyssa all the things that two years ago she wasn't able to.

I was in a really dark place and had She tells Alyssa about not being able to leave her dorm room, about how everything in her life was falling apart, how meaningless it all felt, how ultimately she had to drop out of school.

But she tells Alyssa about her depression.

And I was trying really really hard to be okay, but like what I'm what I'm most ashamed of is that I couldn't just like tell you. I just didn't feel like I could tell you or anyone which is to me sad because you were so nice.

Did you ever suspect that Sorea might be depressed?

I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea.

So less it turns to Sorea, I.

Was immediately impressed with you. You have an energy and an enthusiasm and an honesty that is refreshing.

And inspiring.

So sorry, if I could just jump in for a minute, you never felt like let down, or you didn't feel angry or upset.

I might have been a little frustrated, but I was never angry or disappointed. If anything, I was trying to be compassionate about the workload that I was imagining you had, not knowing that there was another workload that you had that that you were dealing with. So you shouldn't feel like you left me high and dry.

Sarria can't understand how Alyssa could feel this way, how easily she's letting her off the hook. She came to ask for forgiveness for screwing over her mentor, and she's not buying Alyssa's response, Well, I just.

Felt like I hadn't accomplished anything, and like when I was so, I was just going to jump in that is wrong.

For the first time all afternoon. Alyssa drops her measured tone and interrupts, Soria, you had.

Done a tremendous amount of work, and my recollection was that there was just a little bit more that needed to be done.

Sorea looks confused, and at this point I probably do too. The way Sirea had always explained it to me, she'd done almost no work on the project. She'd failed the project, failed Alissa, and failed herself.

You know, I have an image in my mind of the drop box file with a number of different.

Alyssa brings up the existence of a drop box folder. It was there. She says that they both shared articles and material as they worked on the project.

Spreadsheets, Excel spreadsheets and links to them, and there was additional.

It seems that on June fourteenth, twenty sixteen, just before she ghosted on Alyssa, Soirea had uploaded almost half of the required research. Not only that, but she'd organized it too. And yet it doesn't remember any of this. For the past two years, she's accepted her failure as the truth. To now hear otherwise, it is hard to process.

What I'm sort of realizing is that I let the fact that I didn't finish something eclipse the fact that I had done anything at all.

Sirea had been telling herself a story that she'd failed, that she'd made a mess of everything. In truth, though, that was just a story the depression had been telling. But it's this story that, two years later has stuck with her. It took Alyssa the historian to excavate the past. Eventually, the conversation turns to the matter of the work that

I brought it because I wanted to give it to you.

Soria begins in accounting of everything she's done in preparation for the meeting.

So I read about a decade's worth of newspaper and clipped I think it's like seven hundred articles and so I'll just give you a quick look at what's inside.

But Soria speaks, Alyssa shakes her head.

Any of them the other thing is like it's the War of eighteen twelve.

So there's just at first in disbelief because.

I also I just thought the creek stuff that's going on is so fascinating.

But eventually in amazement.

What's going on with the tusc Aurora. It's wild to me.

And then I sit back and watch this side of Soirea that I've not seen before. In spite of her sleep deprived state, she has a natural enthusiasm, a passion for the subject, and a command of the material, all qualities Alyssa must have seen when she first decided to hire her. Back then, Alyssa didn't see the depression. She saw through it to other things, things that at the time Soirea couldn't see herself. Maybe this is why Alyssa took a chance on a freshman.

It's staggering the amount of work that you've taken on. I'm overwhelmed, and I wonder about and here I'm spitballing.

Alyssa pauses for a moment, rubs here, But I wonder if.

There might be a co authored piece, or at least co credited piece, because that wouldn't be possible without Saraya's work.

I'm I'm so glad that you're okay. Yeah, I am too. I still want to say sorry. I don't know, I know you don't seem to need it. Accept your apology, It's okay, that's okay.

Just before the rock rolls back down and the schlap begins anew. In that brief pause when the stone is perfectly balanced at the mountain's top, Sissyphus must experience a moment of respite, a moment when he can unclench his jaw, rub his nack, scratches back. Siria still struggles with depression, with whether she's ready to return to school, but for now, there's a moment of peace. On the train ride back to New York, Soria curls up in her sweatshirt and

I thought you've said that, what is it? Boom boom boom, that's boom boom boom boom, bang it out.

Now that the furnitures returning to it's goodwill home, Now that the last month's rant is scheming with the damaged pos, take this moment to deserve, if we meant it, if we talk, are felt around for far too.

From things good Accidentally. Heavyweight is hosted and produced by me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Peter Bresnan, Khalila Holt, and Stevie Lane. The show is edited by Jorge Just, with additional editing by Alex Bloomberg. Special thanks to Emily Condon, Jasmine Romero, Matilda or Felina, Amber Davis, b A. Parker, and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with music by Christine Fellows, Blue Dot Sessions and he himself, Bobby Lord.