One small step...

It's different being at college.

You expect life to be somewhat different. That's par for the course. You're in a new place with a (possibly) drastically different atmosphere from your high school, or town, or whatever. You may be living away from home for the first time; you may be sharing living space with a complete stranger, figuring out the complex little dance of coexistence that has to be mastered to prevent one or both of you from going postal. You learn to deal.

I'm not even sure how I expected life to change; I only know that I thought it would be. And it is. I've attended four classes so far; my first, chemistry, was as large as my graduating class. My second, calculus, was like a rerun of high school -- we did some very basic review and I was bored out of my skull, but I don't foresee any problems. My French teacher speaks nothing but French and I think that class is going to be a real challenge, which is nice. And life is different. But it all feels a little unreal still. It's so much like my freshman year of high school -- I remember the panic, the sheer unwavering constant apprehensiveness about meeting new people, seeing different kinds of people, wondering how to behave. It's so familiar it's almost terrifying, but comforting at the same time; at least it is familiar.

I'll adjust. I know I will. It's just that last time, it took me two or three years to assimilate. I cringe now at the memory of who I was for a while, out of sheer desperation to fit in somewhere. I'm done with that. I want to meet new people, but I don't really want to redefine myself -- and at the same time I do. It's hard to explain. I'm jealous of people who don't have a lot of people from their old school here, because it's hard to really find out who you are when there are people who know who you were in high school and already have expectations of you.

I kind of want to go back to being a loner for a while, if only because it's so much simpler. I only really feel like myself when I'm completely alone; I almost always feel like I'm acting, being judged, when I'm around others. And I am, even if they aren't doing it deliberately. I know they are, because I'm doing it myself to them. I don't judge people's actions; I don't pretend to know what they should or shouldn't do, but there's a different kind of judgement that simply involves getting to know them. It's not bad; it's all a very complex part of human relationships. But you're lucky to meet five people in this lifetime that you don't do it to and that don't do it to you; they are the only people you will feel completely comfortable around, no matter what, and they are very rare. You might call them soul mates, but I think it's a little deeper and more complicated than that. It's more like a perfect understanding of each other's characters and personalities. It's very intense. So far, I only have that kind of perfect connection with two or three of my blood relatives. So I tend to avoid human company sometimes. It's not antisocial. It's just a comfort thing.

Until next week.