In the fall of 1982, I start
at a new college. I get a room in the downstairs residence hall
nearest the cafeteria, and I get there the day before my roommate,
and open the windows wide to let in cool air (of which there doesn't
turn out to be any). I set up my record player and play my new
Oklahoma cast album that I got over the summer.
When the others show up, it
turns out most of them don't like me much. I'm in the Performing
Arts dormitory, which you would think would be a good thing, because
I like acting, and theatre, and that kind of thing. But it isn't, it
really isn't. A lot of the kids on the hall are gay. I don't mind
gay people, even though my religion says I should. Gay people are
outsiders, like me, and I am always on the side of the outsiders.
But after they find out I'm a Baptist, the other kids on the hall
don't bother asking me what I think. They just make a lot of
assumptions, and then they don't like me because of them.
They also don't like me
because I don't want to sit in the lounge and talk all night long. I
like studying in my room. I like going bed early and sleeping. They
don't like me because I don't want to go to the residence hall
parties. These happen in the cafeteria, and they are disgusting.
Everyone gets really really drunk, and when they have to throw up,
guess who's dorm-bathroom they go to. Most of the time I get up on
Saturday to find puke all over the floor in there, and of course no
one comes in to clean it up until Monday.
They don't like me because I
don't want to have sex every five minutes. Everyone else is sleeping
with everyone on my floor, and most of the time when you want to find
someone you don't look in their dorm-room. Whoever their current
boyfriend or girlfriend is, that's who's dorm-room you look in. I've
never even had sex. I don't know if it's because of my religion.
I've never been asked, so I don't know what I would say if I were.
Maybe I'd say yes. No one asks me of course, though. And all the
other kids in my dorm just assume I'm some kind of prude who's not
doing it because she's too high and mighty, and it's just one more
excuse for them to hate me.
My roommate has lots of sex
whenever she has the chance to. She's got this boyfriend who visits
on the weekends. When he visits, she brings him into our room and
she has sex with him. I have to find someplace else to go until
they're finished. I usually go to the library, but sometimes they go
at it until way after closing time. Then I can go to my roommate's
best friend on our hall's room and wait there. Only sometimes she's
not there, and there's nothing for me to do but wait for hours and
hours in the lounge. I think I'm bending over backwards by just
going, and not making a big deal out of it, but my roommate doesn't
care. She hates me for not having someplace to go, I think.
The year goes on and on, and
there are less and less people that even talk to me. They make their
assumptions about me, and I find myself having to change how I act
because of what they say. For instance, in October, the whole
residence hall goes to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show
together. I go too. And as soon as I show up, a lot of other girls
start making comments about, “oh, I didn't think I'd see you
here.” I try to make a joke out of it. “Yeah,” I say, “like
finding a nun in a whorehouse?” They don't laugh, they just look
at me funny. Later on, when I like the movie so much I go out and
buy the soundtrack right away, I hide it, and only listen to it when
no one else is around, because I don't want a lot of people
commenting.
I have my own life, you
know. I go to the library, the one at my school, and the one in
town. I make some really good dolls, using a clay recipe my mom
taught me for the heads and feet. I listen to the records I have,
and I check out new ones at the library. But my life feels small,
and cramped, and crowded. The things I used to do at my other
college don't work so well here. The Baptist youth group on campus
is small, and not very friendly. The church I go to doesn't even
notice if I don't show up. And when I volunteer at the Republican
headquarters in town, I go there for months, and I'm there all by
myself, and no one ever comes in, so I end up writing a long softcore
porn-story for my only friend Gabie.
I love Gabie. She likes a
lot of the things I like, such as British History, and the History of
Costume. She also has the biggest crush in the world on Prince
Edward (Charles's youngest brother), and she loves the whole Royal
Family just because of him. I can't say that I care very much for
the Royals, who mostly seem like the last tricklings of DNA from a
line that ran out of strength and intellect hundreds of years ago,
but I love them for Gabie's sake. I bring her all the pictures of
them I can find, and when Queen Elizabeth comes to the US, I go to
Los Angeles with Gabie to see her.
Gabie gets in the paper.
She's cool that way. I don't, of course. I just blend into the
background. It's the same way wherever I go with Gabie. She's
friends with everyone on our hall, and I am friends with no one. She
takes me home with her for the weekend and her friends all come over
and talk to her. I end up talking to her little sister about the
Cabbage Patch doll she wants for Christmas. She invites me to a
party her family throws, and she's the one who dances to every song.
I'm the one standing on the sidelines, not sure if I can even dance.
I forgive Gabie for leaving
me out of stuff, because I love her. I would forgive her for
anything. I take all the same courses with her that I can (which
isn't many, because she's Pre-Med). I squee at the same
(boring-looking) professor. And I make a special Mary Queen of Scots
doll, with removable head, for us to give him, because I know it will
make Gabie happy. Only I don't make any more friends. And Gabie, of
course, leaves me out of stuff. And sometimes she isn't there.
I am very very, horribly
lonely. And I'm fed up with everyone thinking I'm one way, when I'm
really some other way ...maybe... – I'm fed up with not even
knowing how I am, or who I am, because the first time I
am all alone in my whole entire life ought to be my time for deciding
who I am, not the time for a bunch of stupid jerks who don't even
like me, deciding who they think I am.
I get a knife. I decide I'm
going to cut myself to relieve the stress, only the first time I do
it, the blade won't cut my skin, so that doesn't work. I try again
with a safety razor, only they don't call those things “safety”
for no reason.
I decide I might be
clinically depressed, so I get a book out of the library and read
about the symptoms. Most of them don't seem to fit me very well, but
I go to a therapist at the Counseling Center anyway. He is very
nice, and lets me unburden myself to him about how alone I feel, and
how I can't figure out how to fit in. I cry a lot, and I admire his
collection of African wood carvings, and I wonder if he is helping me
any. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to be able to tell.
One day someone sneaks a big
fake spider into the hood of my jacket. The first thing I know about
it, is when I hear everyone in the dining hall laughing. I don't
know what they're laughing about, but I'm sure it must be me, because
it's always been me, every time that I can remember. I turn around,
and the spider falls out and lands in my food, and the whole dining
hall erupts with laughter. I run back to my room and cry. Then I
take out my diary and I write how much I hate all of them, and how
much I want to revenge myself on them and destroy all of them. It
doesn't make me feel any better.
I spend the rest of the year
lurking in my dorm-room, listening to Wagner overtures over, and
over, and over. I like Tannhauser best. It feels intense, and
turmoil-y, sort of the way I feel. Gabie invites me to share an
apartment with her the next year, and that lifts my spirits some, but
it is still a horrible year, and I am glad when it's over. I feel
like it's my year of failure, the year when I was a failure.
I vow to change by the next year, and never be a failure again.
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