Thursday, September 26, 2013

A Non-Existent Compass, A Coffee, And A Home

I spent about twenty minutes looking from my class schedule to the campus map online. Where the HELL was my "Outdoor Sports" class supposed to meet? Due to the fact that some things about yourself can't be changed, though I was working on coming out as who I wanted to be, I still couldn't find the damn field we were supposed to meet in. I did not suddenly obtain an internal compass or ability to read a map. 

Let me be clear, I have never ever been good with directions. I can follow directions but reading a map tends to take me ages and ages. I have no internal compass that tells me general directions. If I got lost in the woods hiking, I'd definitely die and it would be at the furthest point from anywhere I should have been. When I walk out of a store in the mall I will ALWAYS turn back the way I came instead of continuing on to the new stores. I think I need to go left but instead I need to just pull a u-turn, go back three blocks, and turn left. It has taken me three years in Barcelona to be relatively capable of telling if I am heading towards the sea or the mountains. Yes. It is that bad. 

The location of my first class was an utter mystery and the new me couldn't overcome this obstacle. I wasn't surprised [and those of you who know me, shouldn't be surprised either]. Screw it all, I thought, I'm not going. I was going to embrace my disaster status.

I thought I'd eventually find someone who was supposed to be in the same class and go to the next one. Which never happened. Oh yes, I did meet people who were in that class. They said, "Where were you?? They were asking about you and wondered if you didn't finally come to the university." 

"Oh that??" I said almost incredulously, "I'm not going to bother. I couldn't find the class, and really, I don't want to do a sports class. I already had to take one at home and what's the point?!?!" I tried to sound cool, to sound like my internal nerd wasn't screaming about dropping a class, and for the most part I think I was convincing. 

I never found the class. I never went to a single one. And I don't regret it at all. Who cares if they went canoeing on the lake? Who cares about field hockey?!? I regretted it a little. Ok, more than a little, but not for long. It gave me a chance to go for a coffee with hottie-tattoo-guy. Totally worth it.

We talked about our significant others. We talked about how nice it was to have someone that we could hang out with and not worry about the other person's intentions. It was clear that we would enjoy being friends. I sipped on coffee, he had hot chocolate with whip cream, and we mulled in the glory of our similarities and how wonderful it would be to have someone that understood. 

I counted his earring studs, five. I was impressed with the badass status of his lip ring in the center of his bottom lip. I noticed a tongue piercing. It took awhile because his blue eyes smiled. When he talked, I heard him. I wanted to know who he was, I had to be his friend. I had to know.

We talked for over an hour. 

In my mind I knew there was this world. I painted pictures and I read stories and I created the world in which I was comfortable. The world in my mind was where it all made sense. Everything that eluded me about the real world came clear in the world of my mind. With each minute we spoke, he painted the colors of my world, he made it real. And I couldn't pull away, he made my world real and I never, ever, wanted to leave it.

I was home. I was home.

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