Full Circle

I walked along the rustic brick path and noticed how it contrasted the Pepto Bismal building, its windows lined in a faded pastel green.  What an ugly building.  It housed my first class I ever took at school, first year, first quarter.  And now it houses the first class of my last year here.  Things are so different.  I’m so different.  And yet the building remains the same, old and chipped and unfettered.  The parking lot is a joke, the ground made of gravel and dirt.  It can hold approximately twenty vehicles, whereas there are a couple of hundred students that have class there.  I have to show up at least thirty minutes early to have a chance at a parking spot.  I remember having this problem when I first came to this building, except it was at 7:30 in the morning, the air freezing, the sun not quite awake yet, fog filling the spaces that cars did not.  Some things never change.  How wretched I think to myself when I recall having to get up so early to go to a building so far away that had inadequate parking and an ugly exterior.  All those extra hours of sleep that building took from me.  I’m sure that contributes greatly to the distaste I have for that place. 

I can remember staying in my warm car for as long as possible, willing time to freeze as the air outside was freezing.  I wished I could hold off the class for as long as possible, to maybe get in a few winks of sleep in the backseat.  But no, inside the building a wild haired Amazon woman was waiting to teach me about storyboard construction.  I eventually had to leave the comfort of my car and brave the cold of the air and the flipping of my stomach in anticipation of the class to come.  I walked alongside the rustic brick path, hands shoved in my pockets as far as possible, my breath trailing behind my ashen face.  If it weren’t for my hands being occupied by my school id in one pocket, my Chapstick in the other, and a ring hanging out of my lip instead of a cigarette, one would mistake me for one of the dozen or so smokers outside, sitting along the brick pathway that jutted out of the ground and allowed for sitting.  Despite the frigid temperatures, those kids couldn’t resist a quick cold smoke.

I was so young back then.  Not really, only two or so years younger than I am now, yet I felt so green, but not that ugly shade of green that stuck to the windows of the pink building like fake kudzu.  No, I was a more innocent shade of green, pure like freshly cut grass.  I was still so naïve and hopeful that this college thing was going to work.  It wasn’t looking hopeful.  My roommate wasn’t working out.  I felt my classes were useless and worst of all, I still didn’t have any friends.  These people in my class seemed to have paired off and made effortless connections and I was the kid left alone in the back of the class, cold hands clamoring for the courage to speak to someone, hoping to find a friend, desperate for a little warmth.  As optimistic as I was when I first started, I realized that optimism was slowly being whittled away by these icy circumstances.

And now I’m back, walking along that same path, staring at the same ugly pink building and I am not the same pale-faced boy that left this place two years ago.  A lot has happened since the building has seen me.  I’ve exchanged one really bad roommate for three decent ones.  I’ve managed to make acquaintances, and while I still don’t have any true friends here, at least they are people I can talk to in class.  I no longer have to sit in the back and hate the fact that I’m so isolated.  I was ready to quit school the last time I walked into that building.  Now, I’m still ready to go, but to graduate, not drop out as I had previously planned.  My class is at five in the afternoon instead of eight in the morning.  More manageable.  My class is a writing class, much more enjoyable than the previous drawing for storyboarding.  I think I’ll get more out of this class.

I’m feeling conflicted.  Things change, I’ve changed, and yet there’s a part of me that doesn’t feel that different.  I think of how easily I slipped back into the memories of how I once was, as if I never really left that way of being.  Perhaps things have changed physically.  I’m living in a new location and I’m physically older and I’m normally surrounded by a different kind of stimuli than I once was when I first walked through the pink building.  But inside, in my mind and in my tiny heart, I’m still that naïve kid.  I’m still that sad little boy who hopes against hope that things will work out. No, more than that.  That things will get better.  That things will finally be good.  I guess things are better.  My situation is better.  My dorm is better, my roommates are all better.  But I’m still not better.  I’m still pretty much the same.  I’m still sad.  I’m still wondering if this place was the right decision for me.  Instead of the younger version of me wondering if I want to continue going to this school, the current version of me wonders if continuing was a mistake.  Surely it wasn’t because I always would have wondered what could have been if I would have left.  Yet, the decision to stay has yet to satisfy me.  I’m still waiting for my decision to stay to be worthwhile. 

It makes me a little sad to know that I haven’t progressed very much from my first year of school to my last.  The old pink building was a reminder of my shortcomings.  Another reason to dislike the place!  I’m walking my same path in my same pair of worn out Converse.  I’m wobbling along, my step unsteady.  I can almost feel the ghost of my former self walking in the exact same manner, my face full of worry.  I’m not worried anymore.  If anything, I feel like I can take on anything after all I’ve had to deal with at this place.  I’m definitely no longer green, more like a shade of dark brown.  As brown as the steps I walk on, as brown as the feeling of being walked on.  But I haven’t been walked on in a long while.  I walk to the double doors like a seasoned pro. 

I might not have grown up too much.  Things might not have worked out as well as I had hoped.  Maybe I’m not any wiser or happier than when I first came here but things are different.  I’ve learned to keep going, despite the disappointments, despite the regrets, ‘cause that’s really all I can do.  I can stay in my car and turn up the heat all I want but eventually I’ll have to get out.  And when it comes to the inevitable, it’s inevitably going to be bad, so why not get up, get out, and get it over with?  There’s nothing worse than drawing out a depression.  So, I keep walking, keeping pressing forward.  And it’s not about being strong.  I’m not a smidge stronger.  Strength isn&r

squo;t carrying my feet forward.  Callousness is.  I’ve been broken down and built up so many times that I just feel so disconnected from my feelings.  I’m just in the mindset that I have to do what I have to do to get to where I want to be.  I’m realizing that disappointment an heartache is a part of the process and I accept that now.  I realize that nothing can be easy for me and yet if I give up I’ll never be better off than I am now and I can’t imagine staying this way forever so I keep going.  Pain is a part of the process.

And I just have to wonder if I’m better off now than back then.  When I first walked alongside that building, all of these different emotions began bubbling up, feelings I had never felt before.  I went from having an overabundance of emotions and feeling like a basket case to having next to no emotions and feeling like a robot.

Whoosh, so many thoughts from one ugly arse pink building.  See what this place does to me.