My Two-Cents: Plasma & Absolutes
Recently, I started doing something I told myself I would never do again. I realize the previous sentence reads slightly ominous. You're probably thinking I’m about to spill some big, juicy secret about how I relapsed on drugs. And I’m sorry to disappoint you – I’m just not that cool. Or mysterious for that matter. The “something” I started doing again is donating plasma.
You see, I donated plasma throughout college because I often feel guilty about wasting loan money on non-essential things. Like clothes, makeup, Jimmy John's wraps, and booze. And I spent a lot of money on the last two things on that list in college. So I started donating plasma to make ends meet – primarily in the JJ’s and Brothers Bar and Grille department. But when I graduated, I declared abstinence from Kedsplasma. Though I made friends and foes at that fine establishment (both good and poor phlebotomists), I concluded my time was up. I figured that as I finished my undergrad degree, I’d finished my blood money days. But a couple of weeks ago, spring loan money thinned and thinned, and the summer loan drop seemed slightly too far from reach. So I caved and went back to my collegiate guilty pleasure. Plasma donation. As I sat in that familiar chair, I couldn’t help but think about my previous promise: my self-proclaimed celibacy from plasma donation. It made me wonder whether I was wrong to break that promise, or just mistaken to think I’d never go back at all.
As I age (like fine wine, mind you), it is increasingly clear that life is full of uncertainties, and absolutes rarely work. Things are always changing. Our personalities, lives, and ambitions are always ebbing and flowing. And this is okay. When we cling and claw to absolutes, we lock ourselves in. In college, plasma donation made sense for beer money. Someday, it might not. Someday (pre-summer loan check 2026), it might be the right choice again. We humans, like to make sense of the unknown by setting arbitrary rules to follow, but these rules only serve us for a while. The absolutes we choose for one moment do not always fit later. Change is inevitable — and that’s the point to remember.
If you haven’t done your own extrapolation and interpretation of the aforementioned thought-nuggets, let me spell it out for you via easier-to-read-font: I’m not just talking about donating plasma. Life, work, hobbies, relationships, routines – they are all constantly changing and require reevaluation. This is okay. In fact, it’s more than okay: it’s good! If nothing changes, nothing changes. Life would be boring! When you stand on your heels for too long, you forget the thrill of standing on your toes. The joy of getting a break from donating plasma. Then the laugh you get from standing in the line and realizing it’s been two years since you swore off it. And you thought you “knew” you would never donate again – and how silly it was of you to swear on an extreme for years to come. We get things wrong, over and over. But the only truly frivolous thought is to assume new information won’t present itself. And that we won’t adapt or change your perspective based on that new information. Maybe the best plan is to keep changing, growing, and adapting our viewpoints to accommodate the versions of ourselves we are living right now. After all, as Obi Wan once said: Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
