Too Many Maybe's

2010

I don't really remember much from those first years. Only glimpses and feelings. Brief déjà vu's that comes over me at odd hours. I've tried to think and trace my way back, but I fear it's buried too deep. Or not buried at all. Like most ordinary days.

I just didn't know how extraordinary it all would turn out to be. I wish I'd paid better attention. Or perhaps my mind is just failing me. Maybe that is why I feel so old sometimes. I used to remember like an elephant. Now, things that should be clear as day feels so far gone.

Another lifetime gone.

It's all bundled up. Rearranged in a grey haze. And I don't know how to make the fog clear again. It has erased the world in front of me and I fear even with the fog gone, there'll be nothing left. Just a blank clear space. 


So, forgive me, please, if I get some of it wrong. This is after all just my recollection of things. Not completely how it was. Nor how I wanted it to be. But somewhere in between. Like you and me, never quite real. Just an inescapable dream, colouring our days.

Or maybe just my days. I was always living half in sleep. So, you would probably tell it all a lot differently.

***

As I've tried to put our time in order, for my own sanity as much as your understanding, I have become certain of a few things. Like our beginning.

A short memory I won't soon forget. The first time we spoke. It was doubtable the first time we saw each other, being two months into the first semester already. But it was the first time I noticed you.

I know, how very romantic. I never said this would be a love-at-first-sight type story. It definitely wasn't. I think in a way I was scared to notice you. To notice anyone really. Keeping my eyes on the ground or fixed on safe faces as much as possible trying not to notice people noticing me. It would only put me at risk of severe heartache or extreme anxiety issues anyways. So, I kept my head down unless spoken to. Which meant I only really noticed those that had befriended me during the first days. And being happy with just a few good people around (less to be anxious over) why would I look any further? If I had been one to fearlessly take in the world around me, unnervous and undoubtful of my own place in it, I would have found you sooner. It might not have been a love-at-first-sight type of story, still. But definitely a pull-at-first-sight. Something in me being called to the somethings in you. To unknown of what things to yet call it love.

Luckily, at college, they love nothing more than to mix EVERYONE together. Even across classes and majors. That's how I met those few good people that kept my gaze from wandering to you. Like Henry and Matt, two other Chemistry majors, I met on the college introductory trip the first week before the semester started. They were sweet and fun. But also very geeky, in the best way of course. Matt had some rock and roll in him which we bonded over. But that first trip was for everyone new at college and only introduced you to a few of the 50-plus people with the same major. So, naturally, they also had another trip for just those 50 people, the Introductory Weekend for all the first-year chem. majors in early November. A trip meant for mingling and bonding with the help of heavy amounts of alcohol and dress-up games. The theme, I think, was Circus. We had been split up into small groups each with a subtheme and your group was supposed to be animals. Despite being the tallest guy there you had discretely dressed in a nice grey shirt to be a mouse of some sort. I remember you having painted little whiskers on your cheeks, but I think that might be my memory playing me. It was after all a very long time ago.

You looked like one of those pretty boys you see on reality tv shows. Your light ash-blond hair spiked up with shiny gel. Your big pouty lips, almost unnatural blue eyes and just enough stubs to show you manhood but obviously very meticulously groomed. You stood out for sure among all the small geeky boys in coloured jeans and nerdy t-shirts. It was obvious you cared for your look and your style in a way that was easy for me to write off as shallow.