Notes from the Benchside

I bought the candle again because, in my mind, it was still my favorite.

I drove to Bath & Body Works with no hesitation, scanning the displays for the familiar white tea and sage. I didn’t question it. Muscle memory reached for the jar like it always had. No thought that scent could betray me. I lit it immediately when I got home, expecting familiarity. Warmth. Relief.

Instead, the room collapsed.

The smell took over my apartment and suddenly I was nineteen again—spring of freshman year—sick more often than I was well, making choices out of exhaustion instead of clarity. Poor decisions disguised as coping. Stress so constant it had become my only reality. The phantom taste of cold coffee and stale air crept back into my mouth, like it had never really left.

I hadn’t realized how deeply my body had archived it. Not as a memory I could narrate, but as a reflex. One breath and my shoulders tensed. My jaw locked. My chest tightened like I’d missed a step on the stairs.

I should have blown it out.

That would have been reasonable. That would have been kind to myself. But I didn’t. I left it burning, almost out of spite. If my brain was going to drag me back there, then I was going to stand in it—here, now, healthy, upright, no longer trapped inside that version of myself.

So I forced it.

I lit the candle on good days. On calm nights. During moments that were explicitly not falling apart. I let the scent soak into laughter, into stability, into choices made with a clear head. I made it witness to a life that no longer required survival mode.

At first, it fought back. The memories came fast and sharp, like muscle memory snapping into place. But repetition wears things down. Neural pathways reroute. Associations decay.

Now, when I light it, the past still flickers at the edges—but it no longer reigns over the room. It has been overthrown by proof. Proof that I outgrew that season. That I emerged worn, but stronger. That I pushed through a stagnant chapter and did not stay there.

I didn’t heal gently. I reclaimed it by force.

And somehow, that feels more honest.

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Have you ever felt held hostage by a certain scent?

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Substack:

How Friction Becomes Momentum

“When you ask those kinds of questions,” Jace said, eyes still on his screen, “I don’t even know how I can answer them. That’s how dumb they sound.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t look at me. He delivered it the casual, unbothered way people do when they’re used to being right.

I remember pausing, crouched beside the incubator, one hand adjusting the temperature while the other held my notebook. I couldn’t tell whether the heat in my face was embarrassment or anger. Probably both. After a shock-induced pause, I nodded. It was my first few weeks in the lab and I was slowly learning not to ask questions in front of someone who has already decided how capable you are.

That was the moment Jace became my first archnemesis.

Not because he was cruel in a dramatic way, but because he represented something far more destabilizing: dismissal. He was quick to assert authority and possessed enough confidence to confuse certainty with correctness. Whether intentional or not, he positioned himself as a gatekeeper—of knowledge, of competence, of who belonged where. At first, I chalked it up to seniority, but the more I observed, the more I realized it was simply personality.

What I didn’t expect was how much space he would take up in my mind.

It’s embarrassing to admit, considering I was barely a side character in his story. But somehow this one project felt like it controlled my entire future. I needed a thesis to graduate with honors. I had already put in a year of work. Yet I felt I had no real say in direction or momentum. He cut me out of decisions, moved on without me, and disappeared for weeks without explanation—halting progress while insisting on control.

I wanted to give up more times than I like to admit.

Not because I didn’t like the lab. I did. I liked my PI. I liked the other lab members. I loved the work. However, Jace made getting anything done feel impossible. Progress stalled. Communication fractured. Every day I stayed felt like choosing between swallowing my pride or abandoning something I had already invested too much in to leave easily.

At first, I wanted his approval. I thought if I asked better questions and worked harder, he might eventually see me as competent.

That phase did not last long.

What replaced it wasn’t confidence. It was necessity.

If I had no control in that project, I would build one where I did. I started my own: not as a power move, but as an escape. I designed it myself. I sought funding on my own. I carved out a path that didn’t require permission. It wasn’t strategic brilliance; it was survival. I needed proof—mostly for myself—that I wasn’t as incapable as I was being made to feel.

I didn’t leave the lab entirely. I stayed because I still believed in the environment and the people who weren’t making it unbearable. What I did stop was waiting to be included. I made myself indispensable somewhere else.

There was a moment that still sticks with me because of how small it was. My PI had asked in passing how much eight liters of water weighed. I answered without thinking. Jace immediately told me I was wrong—no hesitation, no checking.

The PI had to step in and tell him I was right.

It was trivial, but it clarified everything. Jace didn’t think I was wrong because I was mistaken. He thought I was wrong because he had already decided who I was.

Once I understood that, the spell broke.

Every time I wanted to prove him wrong, I ended up proving something to myself instead. I learned how to articulate ideas clearly because being vague made them easy to erase. I learned how to back curiosity with evidence because confidence alone wasn’t enough. I learned that leaving a path that goes nowhere isn’t failure—it’s information.

Some of the most important doors in my career didn’t open because someone believed in me. They opened because I needed an exit.

Looking back, it’s tempting to frame Jace as a villain, but I won’t give him that much power. He wasn’t the antagonist of my story—just a force. Like gravity. Like drag. Something that made forward motion harder, but also more deliberate. Without him, I might have stayed comfortable longer. I might have waited to be invited. I might not have learned how quickly I can build momentum when staying still becomes unbearable.

And here’s the part that took me the longest to accept: not everyone in your life needs to be your friend.

Especially not at the expense of your growth.

We’re often taught that professionalism means likability, that success is smoother if everyone gets along. However, sometimes friction clarifies direction, and the resistance teaches you where you’re meant to go. Sometimes the people who challenge you most—intentionally or not—end up shaping you simply by forcing you to choose yourself.

Jace isn’t my archnemesis anymore. At some point, he stopped occupying a corner in my mind.

That, too, felt like a gift.

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Are there any “archnemeses” you’re grateful for in your life?