Theories of Insanity

4 | Labor Day

September

4 | Labor Day

Monday, September 4, 2017

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Insanity:

Almost causing damage to kitchen appliances because the library is closed...the day before the semester even begins.

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"Do you wanna go to the gym?"

            Those were the last words I had expected to hear come out of my own mouth, but the reason for them were threefold:

1.     I needed to get out of my bedroom. Madison had been crying for the past five days about her breakup with Greg, which ironically rivaled the number of days she had actually dated the guy. (1)

2.     I had eaten a lot of pity ice cream with Madison in an effort to be a good roommate, and I was starting to notice my Bubba forming. (2)

3.     I was determined to prove my mother wrong, who had told me the entire summer that if I didn't start exercising then, I would never develop the habit to do it in college. (3)

So, I found the one person I seemed to have some sort of normal bond with—Ashley—and woke her up to go to the gym with me. In high school, I had done dance, but quit after my sophomore year and hadn't really done any physical activity since...so I was prepared to fail miserably at this.

            "Yeah, sure." Ashley nodded as she rubbed her eyes and sat up. "Give me a second to get dressed."

            I left the room and went out into the kitchen, tightening my ponytail and trying to ignore the sniffling coming from my bedroom just one door over. I had nothing against Madison at all—she seemed to be a perfectly nice girl—but at the same time, I also had taken approximately two hours to get over my last relationship, that had lasted three months. I wasn't on the same page as her with her continued crying over a week-long fling.

            Ashley walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, hair up and dressed in leggings and a t-shirt. She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge before nodding at me.

            "Ready?"

            "Yeah, let's go."

            We left the apartment and started towards the direction of the gym. Legered was huge—over 30,000 students attended it—and thus, the gym was a solid twenty-five minute walk from our apartment. But it gave me my first chance to actually get to know Ashley, aside from her spitting popcorn in my face that first night...although that had already bonded us more than the rest of the apartment.

            "So you're from Virginia?" Ashley asked me as we walked down the stairs outside. "That's super cool. My mom was born there."

            "That's so funny! I didn't think I'd meet many people with East Coast roots out here." I shook my head, trying to remember where she was from. "And you're from...Texas?"

            Ashley laughed.

            "Close! Oklahoma."

            "Ah, sorry. I have an atrocious memory."

            "You're all good! It's not a super memorable state, except if you like the musical."

            "I actually played violin for my high school's production of it, so I definitely should have remembered." I laughed, "But that's cool. So how do you like school here? You were here for summer term, right?"