Brains!

I walk to school everyday, and on this day it was foggy as usual, the treetops disappearing in the mist. My hands hurt from the cold; I can’t seem to stay warm here. Sitting in the big lecture hall I was restless, I couldn’t focus on the video about Buddhist monks. Usually the topic would envelope me, usually I would be fascinated with trying to understand how completely different their lifestyle was. In fact the only thing that I seem to have comprehended at all from that class was breath deeply. 10 deep breathes. I went to lecture for Mapping Sciences, and thought I was going to be sick all over the floor-the more I go to that class the more I feel like I’ve reverted month, years to my former high school self. Shy, insecure, feeling completely inferior. The more I go the more I want to run and never come back, but now I can’t. Now I can’t just half-ass it. I’m supposed to enjoy all of this more then anything-and the only thing I enjoy are the things that have nothing to do with this mapping sciences crap. What if I get out of this place and I haven’t retained anything?

I sat and I called my voice of reason. I took ten deep breathes and I listened to him tell me that he loved me, I reminded myself that was all that mattered. It helped to keep my mind from shattering. Later in lab we met in the courtyard, it’s one of my favorite places. You wouldn’t believe the quiet there, it’s enclosed and at the highest point on campus. Zoë and Colin sat down next to me. Zoë who is my lab partner of choice in that class, and Colin who I have history with but am now quite over and friendly towards again. I was just sitting there talking to Colin, asking him about his climb up Shasta, trading weekend stories- pretty normal chitchat for Colin and me when Prof. Cunha asked us all to gather round the transit thing for measuring something or another-something everyone else seemed to grasp but I had no idea about. So up Colin got, ready to show off all the knowledge he keeps in his damn big head. Zoë, whom I recently met in lab and have become buddies of sorts, practically grabbed my elbow and asked, “Are you trying to hit on that Colin guy?” I said, “Who Colin,” giggling under my breathe at the irony of it all, “No. No way”. I said. She laughed a little, and then she said, “well if you were, I was gonna say your going about it all the wrong way.” And she went and stood at the center of the group. I was sort of caught off guard by this last comment. It only seemed to add to my need to repel my damn toast and strawberry jam. I stood there, trying to focus on the Professor as she diligently explained how to triangulate our position. But all I could think of was, wow do I look so young to you Zoë? Compared to you, do I stand out that much? Is this what I looked like all through high school, this clueless kid that everyone wants to cradle and protect? I could hardly believe that she was telling me I was going about hitting on people the wrong way? I realized she had no idea about me. None whatsoever. And I had no idea about her, as I was soon to find out.

After lab, I was sitting on a bench in front of Founders Hall looking out to the bay and the bottoms where the fog still earth seemed to be sopping up the fog. Zoë sat down next to me, we talked a little, and I asked her when her next class was. She said “Oh I don’t have one, I’m just waiting for my boyfriend, well my now ex-boyfriend to come by. Yeah he just broke up with me yesterday.” I said “oh my gosh why?” She said, “I actually don’t know, he didn’t tell me.” At first I was still suffering inferiority complex, I felt like I was 15. I wanted to say, don’t you dare let him get away with it, and don’t you dare. Late I would wish I had said “I know why he did, especially if he didn’t give you a reason, it’s because he’s damn scared”. I vaguely remembered all the feelings I felt last February when it had happened to me in much the same way. I also thought about how this must have influenced her random choice of comments earlier in the day. I wanted to laugh again at the irony of it all.

I wanted to tell her about my experience, tell her that I was madly in love with someone now. That back in February I was confused, hurt, how I forgave and forgot and eventually loved again. I wanted to be the older and wiser one; I wanted my security back, my damn newfound confidence back. But it didn’t come. I just sat there and listened to her, and then she got up and left. I checked my phone to see if any messages had come in from the person that mattered most, from the only thing that made any sense.

Now I’m infested with anxiety, I feel sickish anytime I am in class, I keep going though. I know I’ll be ostracized if I just give up. But I’ve never felt in such a hole in my entire life. What am I doing here? What the hell am I doing?