Another memory:
Recently I was thinking about this and I don't know why. When I was in first year at college there was a girl in my English class named Samantha. Samantha was very skinny, had brown tightly curled shoulder length hair, and her voice was unusually low pitched . Although she was kind of awkward, she spoke up often in class and sometimes her comments were followed by snickers from people who sat close to me, likely weak minded people who had no opinions of their own to share and thus felt the need to compensate by ridiculing others. Naturally, being skinny and painfully shy myself, I developed a crush on her. We never spoke in class, but we rode the same bus at times, often exchanging glances and awkard smiles. Then, one day at the mall, she bounced up to me, her face beaming. "Hi. How's it going?" In response, I'm sure I said something clever like, "Good," or "Allright." She asked me several other questions, all in an open, bubbly manner. I was like a deer in headlights, providing only one word answers in response. She ended the conversation with, "So I guess I'll see you in class," and then giddily bounced away to be with her friends. After she left, the friend I was with ribbed me a bit, and then said, "I think she likes you." Like an idiot, and with complete honesty, I said, "Really. You think so?" But I knew he was right. A door had been opened. Over the next day or so, I planned out what I would say to her in class, rehearsing variations in my mind, over and over. I had decided that Samantha was cute, in a quirky sort of way. And I recognised a vulnerability in her that I admired, vulnerability that came from being open and taking risks. She was someone I wanted to get to know. But when class came around again, I didn't talk to her. We never talked again, in fact, although we did continue to exchange the odd glance or awkward smile. About a month later, I was driving in my car and listening to a call-in talk show on the radio. A girl was talking to the host about how she was finding it difficult to meet people in college, especially guys. The voice was unmistakeable. It was Samantha. She went on to say that guys just didn't seem interested in her and she wondered if something was wrong with her. Hearing her put herself out there like that, speaking so openly about her fears and insecurities roused extreme feelings of empathy and admiration from me. I thought I should tell her I heard her on the show, that I felt the same things she did. But of course I never did. I think about those early years in college and university and I wonder how many friendships, experiences, romances I might have had if I had overcome my fears and insecurities.
I think I've been thinking about these types of things lately because my life has changed so much in such a short time. And I'm on the verge of still greater changes. It seems like every choice I make now is pregnant with consequence and ripe with risk. I've come a long way since the Samantha days. But at times, in the area between my chest and my stomach, I still feel a tightness inside me like the wound up dense core of a baseball, something I felt often in those early college days. I still heed it, but while then I let it hold me down, now I choose to believe it merely grounds me, a subtle difference certainly, but pragmatically, I think, a significant one. Learning to live with fears, intense moments of loneliness and dislocation--with doubts that seize your guts and weigh you down--then learning to accept and even embrace them: this has been a key lesson for me. I wonder if ten years later Samantha has come to the same conclusion. I imagine she has.
