Love is Not Bullshit

30 I New beginnings

The first weeks of university were hectic and exciting and scary. They went by in a blur, and looking back, while the long summer seemed to stretch out, university time seemed to fly by me. 

For a while it felt as if I was looking at my life as if it were a picture. People inside the frame were moving and getting to know each other and I was still with one foot outside the frame, undecided about where to go in. 

Then that phase passed and I started going out of my way to meet new people and be friendly with everyone, even when I knew that they weren't the kind of people I could have built a solid friendship with. 

I spent the majority of my time studying, leaving out portions of time from my schedule to also attend social events. If someone asked me to get a coffee, or to join them at one of the events organised by the many student associations I'd go, but my main thought was always to keep up with my readings. 

I liked my lectures, the content was stimulating and the questions my fellow students asked were intricate at best. I still hadn't raised my hand in a lecture (and maybe I never would). Sometimes I thought of questions that sounded smart in my head but I was worried that in saying them out loud, in pronouncing myself on the matter, my sentences would appear disjointed or the meaning would be unclear. So I sat quietly and took neat notes that would only make half sense when I would sit down later on in the library to read through them. 

I liked sitting in lecture halls and feeling like one of many, sometimes I imagined I was a famous scientist at an important conference. But they felt weirdly impersonal; whether I went or not would not make a difference to anyone in the room. In school we were constantly being checked upon, every morning and afternoon our names would be called out to make sure we were where we were expected to be, and if someone wasn't there, phone calls would be made, their whereabouts questioned, people would be worried. I always thought it was too much, the constant surveillance, but now I missed it, the personal relationships with teachers that were always there to take care of our every need. 

The adult world seemed a world made of strangers, everyone went their own way, without worrying about the people around them that were doing the exact same thing as they were. The importance of independent study was repeated over and over to the point where I wasn't sure if asking for help was admissible. Professors seemed friendly but distant and everyone looked as if they'd become adults ages ago and in my mind I was still a little girl, dressing up with her mother's clothes. 

I called my friends often. I'd get lost listening to Shaina's voice as she'd keep me up to date with her latest crushes and the gossip at school. With Marika we shared our embarrassing moments, the awkwardness of first encounters that left us blushing when we thought back to them. With Bianca we talked about boys, the guys that she'd gone on dates, the ones she'd kissed or the ones she met at parties. In that first period I lived vicariously through her, I didn't' have much of a love life, I hadn't met anyone that caught my attention and Julian was still often on my mind. 

I also found that I missed my family to a degree I'd never felt before, I called them every evening and found comfort in their smiles and bickering. I don't think I was unhappy, I was just trying to find a balance in a world that was both alluring and frightening.

I met Olivia and Charlie at an open mic organised by the music committee during my second week of university. Their friend had just left and I took the opportunity to sneak onto the newly empty seat next to them. 

Olivia, whose name I would only find out later, talked to me throughout the whole night, she made silly comments about the name of one of the bands, or complimented someone's haircut or told me her opinion about the arrangement of a song. I would learn in the next days that she hadn't mistaken me for her friend, she simply started conversations with anyone, she liked talking to people and I was grateful I'd taken a chance and sat next to her.