On Being a Stranger

This is a record, like it or not. A record of what? A woman losing her sight? A soldier wandering and wondering? An adolescant catologing complaints against the loss of wonder? No. This is only the record of me, whatever that is.

I’ve come home to West Virginia these past two weeks, and have almost completely forgotten the stresses of college. Suddenly, the don’t seem relevant, out here in another part of the world. I am releived to feel the stresses fade away, but I wonder, when I graduate, will the lessons fade also? College really has been full of a lot of artificial stress, for me.

At the end of this week, I’ll travel again, this time to Boston. I have never been to Boston before in my life, and yet, in a matter of days, I’ll be living there. Well, technically I’ll be living in Cambridge. Is there a difference? I don’t know.

I won’t know my way around. i won’t know a single person there. I won’t ever have heard anyone speak the way they do.

Somehow, I thrive in this. The state of being a complete stranger, an alien, in an entirely unknown environment, its like being born all over again. (Speaking of “born again” it will also be nice to get away from Tennessee.)

It will be nice to start over. I have grown tired with the expectations that people have of me, in tennessee and in west virginia. I’m expected to be someone I don’t want to be anymore. Its difficult to explain. Something happened to my personality a while ago. It changed. People are slow to take to change, particularly when it comes to the people they feel close to, I think. So, it will be nice to be able to make first impressions all over again.

I am curious to see how the first impressions might differ from the present impressions.