(no subject)
first week of school. check.
I say week, even though it was two days, because rehearsals started before school, making it feel like a full week. My head spins and revolves at this moment.
The rhythms of school are strange to me, yet familiar and reassuring. The first day back, I saw someone who used to inspire a torrent of curses. I would hear her name and become embittered. To see her would remind me of what she had done. What Mulligan had done. To see her reminded me of a time that I was so happy, and I time where I felt that all that had kept me grounded was taken away. She was that person who was so much like me that we could talk by merely exhaling. I could drink her in. It was hard to tell where the two of us were seperated by our skin and insecurities. We were happy imagining an old couple that will not, now, exist.
When I saw her the other day, there was no bitterness. There was no anger. I saw her coming toward me, not a stranger, not an ex, but an old friend, my friend. She was the girl I had met that summer at governor's school. The girl I used to wish would fall in love with me. She wasn't the girl that went to JMU and lost herself. She wasn't the girl who came to VCU and struggled to find what she had lost. She wasn't treading water. She wasn't faking her own life. She had remembered herself. She had sculpted an image that I thought still only existed in my mind, and had carved it out of that sad shell of what she had become. She made me happy. I was glad to see her. Even though I greeted her by sticking out my tongue and saying that I 'fucking hated her' she knew what I meant.
"Good to see you again. I've missed you."
And I had.
It's not that I want what I had. It's not that I'm in love with the past. It's not nostalgia.
I saw my old friend. She had finally come back from a long exile. It was good to see her. Perhaps, one day, it'll be good to talk to her. But I think baby-steps are the order of the day.
The school itself is awash with the new baby powder fresh faces of high schools. It's always a joy to see the freshman. They're so new. They shine. They have that 'new student' smell. They have such high hopes for school and their lives. They're not embittered by anything. All the teen movies are about to come true for them as far as they are concerned. And why shouldn't they?
I think I still have a crush on a certain lady who will now be a sophomore. It's shameful. Almost as shameful as the fact that I'm never ever going to do anything about it. Because, well, that's what I do.
I also met the cutest person ever. She's tiny, and greek, and she's going to be in school forever. She's a double major in dance and theatre ed. Poor girl. 23. With 3 more years ahead of her. But she has such an infectious personality. I hope she becomes my friend, because she is among perhaps 12 people that genuinely make me smile.
Oh. Rehearsals are fine. Not that I care to write it, or that anyone cares to read it.