It's all so new...

Chapter 1 : Goodbye.

It’s funny how emotions work. I knew I was going to leave soon yet it hadn’t truly hit me until the day before. I could have taken a whole week to see all my friends and family, but I didn’t. I guess part of me just wanted to ignore the fact that my life was about to change forever, that I would never again have the same bond with my parents. I would have to depend only on myself for a while. I was sitting by myself in my room and it’s then that the emotions hit me. I thought of my best friend and how much I would miss her. Her smile, her laugh, I would miss being able to see her anytime I wanted. I texted her to see if we could hangout before I left which was fairly early the next morning. She then announced she would only be able to come at 10 Pm after her work. It didn’t give us much time since I needed to leave for the airport at six in the morning but I was determined to spend some time with her. I couldn't bear the thought of having to wait till christmas. But at the same time, that gave me a lot of time during the day to see some other friends and so I did. I went to lunch with one of my friends from high school, we hung out for a little while, then I went to see my grandparents.

Saying goodbye to my grandparents was very hard for me. My grandma is sick and it’s not getting any better. She is slowly losing her eyes. I knew when I held her that it might be the last time she could see my face. I just pray that she remembers me. I held my grandmother and grandfather tight between my arms. I was trying to take mentale pictures of their faces, trying to record our last moment before I left just in case it would be our last moment together. At some point I had to let go of them. I watched them go out the door, it hurt my heart. The door was closed and the moment was over. I took the rest of the evening to spend time with my family.

We watched movies together, laughed together and then finally, my best friend arrived. I hugged her tight. We were determined to spend the whole night awake and treasure those precious moments. Our first order of business was going to swim under the stars. I live next to a river. It is beautiful all day long but during the night, it holds a special kind of beauty. You can see the lights of the town reflecting on the water, the stars shining bright and the glorious moon providing it’s light. You can lay there, your ears under the water and admire its beauty. I would stay there all night if I wasn’t afraid of the fishes swimming under me. We jumped in a couple of times, laughed, and took a video. My phone almost fell in the water, thankfully it didn’t, I can barely afford college. We basically tried to recreate all our favourite activities together. After our swim, we went for a run. We used to run everyday together. We got to a point where it was genuinely fun. We ran for the last time. After that, we played a board game. The fun thing about playing games is the jokes and laughs that come out of it. Being tired makes everything funnier. When we had done all those things, it was 2 in the morning. I had to leave in four hours. I didn’t care how tired I would be, I wasn’t ready to surrender to my bed. We watched a movie. I’m trying to remember which one it was but I really can’t. All I remember is that I had watched it a thousand times before. Then started the reckless battle between me and my brain. My eyes would close and I would desperately fight to keep them open. I would blink a couple of times, sit on the couch instead of laying down. I was so close to winning. It’s at that moment that I started telling myself that since I already knew what would happen in the movie, I didn’t have to keep my eyes open to follow along. Big mistake. I ended up falling asleep there on the couch. When the movie was over, my friend woke me up and at four in the morning, I finally admitted defeat. It was time for bed. I had barely fallen asleep when I had to wake up again.

My whole family woke up with me. I was the first to wake up, I got ready and brought my suitcases in the car. I would have been ready to leave, I was 30 minutes past 6. My mom, who was supposed to come with me to the airport, was still sleeping. I woke her up and while she was getting ready, I also woke up the entire family. My sister, my friend, my two brothers, my brother’s girlfriend and my dad. All who were in the house gave me a hug and said goodbye. I didn’t even feel bad for waking them up. Not even my friend who barely had any sleep in her body. My mom was ready and we left.

Our plane only left at 12 but the drive was an hour long and I wanted to see my other best friend who lived near the airport before I left. It’s a pretty sad story actually. She used to go to my high school and we spent all our time together. We would even spend time together outside of school. During the summer we would work at the same summer camp. We’d spend months at a time with each other. Then, she moved 6 hours or more away from me. It was a heartbreaking moment. For college, she had moved an hour away from me and it would have been the perfect opportunity for us to hangout together again but I was going to college in a whole other province. So before I went to the airport, we had breakfast, laughed, talked about how stressed we were for college. As soon as the moment started, as soon as it ended. We gave each other a hug and that was it. It was less hard saying goodbye to her because at that point, we were already used to being seperated. We went to the airport and I was anxious.

All my emotions were overwhelming me. I got so anxious that I felt physical pain in my wrists. I tried not to think about it but I was leaving all that I loved and had known behind to go to a place I didn’t know. I had only seen pictures of it online at my school and my apartment. What if I hated it? I had plenty of time to think about that while we waited at the airport and during the flight itself.

Chapter 2 : Hello Winnipeg.

The plane ride was quick, only two hours. Since I hadn’t slept the night before, I slept for most of the plane ride. I had a window seat so I got to admire the view (when I wasn’t sleeping). Now I understand why heaven is always shown on clouds, it’s so beautiful! We passed through a couple of clouds, the plane would shake. It was a very thrilling experience. It wasn’t my first time on a plane but it had been a couple of years, don’t blame me for being excited over these little things. We finally landed. The city seemed beautiful from up there but when we actually went to the streets, it wasn’t as nice. We drove through poor streets. People would set up tents in parking lots and would call it a home. I had never seen anything so sad. I wished I could help them. We finally arrived at the house me and my mom would be living at until I would get my apartment. It looked rough from the outside but was very nice on the inside. The houses in our streets were surrounded by fences. It gave me the impression that it wasn't safe. When we got inside, I noticed there were a bunch of little quotes on the wall. The only one I remember said : “HOME is where the story begins”. The only reason I remember it is because the same quote was posted in my apartment when I finally got there.

Soon after we arrived we had to leave again in order to get food. We decided to walk there in order to save money and at the same time see the city. We passed all the poor streets, many sketchy grocery stores. While we were walking, minding our own business, a group of men, drunk men, noticed us. They started screaming at me. I’m not exactly sure what they said. The only thing I understood is : “Let me buy your pants.” And they repeated it over and over again. I walked with my head down hoping they would not follow me. Gladly, they didn’t. I was trying to figure out if there was any possible way that the comment would not have been sexual but it had to be. These men were gross and made me feel unsafe. We kept walking, minding our business and finally got to the store. We got all our things and walked back home. Thankfully, I didn’t have any other encounters that night. We went to bed. The mattresses were very uncomfortable which made it hard to sleep. All I could think about is how this was the place I was destined to stay and it was awful. Would I ever be able to walk in the streets without being screamed at? Would I ever be able to sleep without being afraid? I thought about my favourite outfit which was a cute little blue top and a white skirt. Probably best not to wear it anymore. I don’t want that sort of attention. It’s sad.

After that, I had a couple of other encounters that made me doubt my decision. For example, the pharmacy we went to didn’t have any more shopping carts because they had all been stolen. I tried not to think about it. I was impatiently waiting for the opening weekend at my school to get a better idea of what life would be like. Me and my mom, to ease my worries, decided to go visit my apartment beforehand. There, we saw a beautiful building with a painting on the wall of a lady sewing a heart back together. It was very beautiful. It was going to be my home. The whole street was filled with buildings with beautiful works of art. At least that was positive. Then, I had a more positive encounter with a citizen of the city. A young girl. I say young but she was around my age. She said “Hi” to me thinking I was her sister. Apparently we look alike. That started a conversation. She was very nice to me. She told me about the city, where to go, where to avoid. I told her I was just moving in to study. Then she had to go, she went on her bike and the last words she said to me were : “Don’t do drugs”. I will follow that advice. I should have gotten her number, at least I would have had a friend. But I didn’t. Maybe I’ll see her again one day. After that day, I got to settle in.

Chapter 3: Apartment and Roommates.

Finally, it was time to get into my new home. A gorgeous apartment. The only disadvantage was that I had to share it with five other students, that’s how you save on cost. We hadn’t talked to each other yet, I had no clue what to expect. The school I was going to was a new school called Boreal college. I liked their program because it included a great involvement in our community. I thought it was a good way to build contacts. The school didn’t have dorms like most schools do, they have apartments which to me is so much nicer. So we have a common area with a kitchen, living room and all of that and we all have our rooms. I have to share my room with another girl which I don’t mind too much. We got to the building and the dean of women opened the door for me. She was very sweet. She brought me to my room. There I saw a guy. He was very tall, very skinny. He was wearing cowboy boots, ripped pants and a backwards cap. He immediately said “hi” to me and shook my hand. I was awkward about it. I wasn’t used to shaking hands and I had stuff in my hands so I had to balance everything in one hand. I then continued and went to my room. I was the second one to arrive after the cowboy boots guy. Apparently he misunderstood the message and arrived a day early. Rookie mistake. I started setting up in my room and I was done fairly quickly. I didn’t really want to go outside because I know I am horrible at small talk. I still ended up leaving. I met some of the people there. There were two girls, they were both very kind. I was kind of weird. I somehow memorized all their names before I met them. So when I saw the last one, by process of elimination, I knew who she was. So I said : “Oh hi, you must be Nathalie!”

She seemed kinda weirded out and at first I didn’t understand why, well until she answered :

“How does everyone already know my name?” I had to try and explain how I wasn’t a stalker and my brain just remembers things like that without me even trying. Conversation ended soon after because we were both out of things to talk about.

I walked down the hallway and saw another one of the guys. He had blond hair and blue eyes. He was pretty attractive but I instantly had a bad impression of him. We passed each other and I was about to say “Hello” and to get to know this guy a little bit since I would be living with him. But he just ignored me and kept walking. He didn’t even look at me or acknowledge I was there. Kind of rude if you ask me. I tried to brush it off and not let it ruin my day or make me unconfident. I kept meeting different members of the staff. I am horrible at small talk so I was hoping that with time, I would seem less strange. That was pretty much the theme of the day, small talk, and it wasn’t great. I had already met my roommate Emily. We had talked a little bit on Emails. She told me beforehand that she suffered from Cerebral Palsy. That basically means that she can’t move the muscles in her body how she would like too. She has trouble doing simple things like talking or walking. Our first conversation was basically me asking her to repeat herself about a thousand times. I couldn’t understand anything she was trying to tell me. Sometimes, I would just smile and nod pretending like I understood so she wouldn’t feel too bad. We had super and went to bed and that was pretty much my first day there. We had many activities planned to get to know each other next weekend. I was getting tired of answering the same questions over and over again.

Chapter 4 : First week.

The first day we got to actually know each other was during the opening weekend. More precisely, on Saturday. We had a nice little barbecue outside. We got to eat hamburgers and talk. The blond guy, who’s name is Will, brought a basketball. We all played the game and I was, honestly, surprising myself. But Will was still better than me. He’d keep showing off. He’d throw the ball from very far away. He didn’t act snobby about it though. I ended up being second out of all the people who played. Guess who was first… I finally then got to actually meet him. Although we didn’t say “hello” or anything like that, we just played.

Now on that weekend, cowboy boot guy and I got to talk. His name is actually Micah. We played a lot of games to pass the time. We’d talk and do puzzles. Personally, he’s not my type but I could somehow sense that he was into me. By somehow, he made it quite obvious. He’d tease me all the time because I didn’t get his cowboy references. He’d spend all his time with me. He’d give me high fives and come up with a bunch of excuses to touch me. He would never let me carry my stuff either. When we woke up in the morning, he would make me coffee, add the creamer, give me a spoon, and as soon as I was done, he’d make sure to take back the cup and wash it. I told him everytime that I wanted to do it myself, but he didn’t listen. All that after only two days. It got really annoying. At some point, Nathalie was baking in the kitchen and she opened the oven, it surprised me so I took a step back, I bumped into him, and he just put his hands around me. I pushed him back as soon as I could and we never talked about it after that. At that point, I wasn’t sure if he liked me or not, I had a good idea though. I didn’t want to be mean to him because I knew he was doing all of that just to be nice. I got over it and just tried to hang out with some of the other people.

One Sunday we had a huge celebration. A lot of people came, there must have been at least five hundred people. I am a pretty shy person so I just stuck with the people I lived with. Micah did his usual Micah things. When I didn’t have a chair, he gave me his. He went to get me coffee, he grabbed my bag so I didn’t have to hold it, he brought me a cup of coffee and he would not take “no” for an answer. He left for a bit and I was just happy to be able to breathe. It’s at that moment that Will approached me. He told me ; “I realized that Micah is pretty touchy with you, does it bother you?” I was in shock because I just didn’t think that this guy cared at all. I didn’t want to be mean to Micah since I knew his intentions were good so I just said “Yeah… he can be a little intense sometimes.” As soon as I said that he gave me a reassuring look : “Okay, I’ll talk to him, don’t worry about it anymore” he said. After that he just left me. I felt awkward. This sort of thing had never happened to me before and it was just a little bit of a shock. I did appreciate the fact he was looking out for me, I just didn’t know why.

The next week was pretty hard. Classes started and we were doing a lot of homework. We didn’t have much time for ourselves. Whenever we did have time, we would pretty much just spend it doing puzzles or playing board games. Finally, the weekend came. We had a little bit of free time. But a little bit quickly turned into a lot, meaning we didn’t know what to do with ourselves anymore. Emily, my roommate, likes to draw and I did too, so I proposed we should do that together. So we grabbed all of our things and went to the kitchen table. There, a couple of people passed, Micah stayed. He played his music and did some homework, he didn’t really bother me. I decided I would do a portrait of Emily. She is so cute but sometimes people don’t want to notice it because she can’t smile or talk properly. I wanted to make her feel valued and let her know that she is beautiful. She on the other hand did a drawing of a ranch. She has a thing for cowboys, she doesn’t like Micah though, she made that very clear to me. We got to spend some time together, get to know each other and bond. I showed her pictures of my dogs, she said they were cute (which they are.) At some point, Will came out of his room. He looked at our drawings and didn’t say much about them. He just took a paper and went to the other side of the table. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. He was very focused. He had his music on and it looked like he was in his own little world. I continued to draw. Me and Emily played a game. She proposed it and I felt weird saying no. She wanted people to guess what she was drawing. Now, remember how she doesn’t really have control over her hands, her drawings did reflect it. I have to say though, even through that challenge, she was a pretty good artist. People would try and guess but no one got it right. We laughed at the people who got it wrong because to us, it was very obvious. In the same way, we asked people to guess who I was drawing and they all were able to say Emily. They all complimented my drawing but they also complimented Emily’s smile. It was a very good picture of her I was copying, she looked happy. That made me happy.

After a while, I decided to go see what Will was doing. Of course he was drawing and it was really good. He drew one of the characters from Lord of the Rings. I have to admit, I don’t know much about that series, I wish I did so I could have maybe bonded with him or start a conversation but that just wasn’t the case. I simply stuck to : “Wow, that’s a good drawing.” He looked at me and smiled. He kept drawing there even after me and Emily had left. I have to admit, he intrigued me and I did want to get to know him more, so I attempted to start a conversation. “How long have you been drawing for?” I asked. He told me there wasn’t a specific time, he just always sort of liked it. I then asked him if he had ever done any portraits. He said “no”. I said “I like doing people’s faces but I’m always so stressed out about the result. I don’t want to insult anyone”. He smiled and said : “Well, I loved seeing Emily’s smile when you gave her that drawing.” That stayed with me. It did make me happy too. He cared for Emily and that also made me happy. The conversation sort of died out after that. We all went to bed, excited that we would finally get the chance to sleep in.

Chapter 5 : It’s the weekend!

I didn’t really have any plans for the day. I would just get up and see how it would go. There, I found a piece of paper left over from the night before. I figured, I have nothing better to do, might as well draw. So I did. I had a nice cup of coffee in front of me, a pencil in my hand and a blank sheet of paper, life was good. Micah was in the kitchen with me. We talked a little bit but he got better at giving me some space. Nathalie came out, she sat with me for a little while and we talked. But she soon left to do more interesting things than watching me draw. After a while, Will came out. Therefore, I did what anyone would have done, I told him to draw with me and he did. We spent the next couple of hours drawing together. I learnt a lot about him. I learnt that he was the second best in his province at track and field. He had a scholarship at multiple different universities and his dream was to be in the Olympics. Everything I learn about this man surprises me. He is just talented in everything. We talked a lot about music, he showed me some songs and I showed him some as well. I felt like we were really bonding. He was easy to talk to. We then moved on and played basketball together. We had a good time. I looked at him and how fit he was and it kind of made me feel weak. Surely he would never go for me. Then I’d think of our first interaction and how most of the time he’d just stay in his room and it didn’t make sense anymore. During the next week, we spent time together watching movies or just listening to music.

He also did something else that made me admire him. Our neighborhood was rough and there were a lot of crazy people. One night, our window and two of the cars got smashed by a lady. It was dangerous. We needed to be careful. There were also obviously the other events that happened the first few days I was there. So we had this one girl in our class who had to take the bus everyday in order to get back home. To get to the bus stop she had to walk alone. Most of the time too it was late at night. So everytime Will would hear her say “goodbye” he would get up and walk her so she wouldn’t be too scared. I have seen him nap on the couch, hear her leave and get up with his puffy eyes even though it seemed like he didn’t want to just to make her feel safer.

We’d often end up hanging out after classes with him and Emily. He would make her laugh to the point of her falling to the ground. Even though I hadn’t known her that long, I could see that a lot of people avoided her or treated her differently because of her disability but not Will. He treated her like she was just like everyone else if not more valuable. I loved that too. One night we were messing around and he was telling me about how he ate a lot of food. I didn’t take him seriously and basically said he was very skinny. When he told me his weight I said I thought it would be lower than that. I don’t know why I said that. I think part of me was trying to tease him and another part of me felt insecure because we were too close to the same weight. I realized after that I shouldn’t have said that. He took it as a joke but I just felt so mean.

We didn’t hangout as much the week after that. I was very sad. In every situation I couldn’t help but think that I wish he was there. I understood that the reason he was spending more time in his room might not be about me at all but what if it was? We’d still hang out together sometimes, listen to some music, sing along, but it wasn’t the same. I knew that I had to do something. One day, we were all sitting around the couches. One of our other roommates was talking about how stressed she was because she was about to go on her first date. We just sort of sat and talked. When she finally left, it was just me and him in the room. For a while, we didn’t talk. We just scrolled down on our phones. He put some music on as always. The pressure was building up in my mind and I couldn’t bear the awkwardness in the room. So I got up in front of him and started talking : “Look about the other night, the comment I said about you being too skinny, I really didn’t mean it… I actually think you're really attractive! Well anyways, I guess what I’m trying to say is that, I’m just insecure about my own weight and I thought that if you felt you were too skinny it would make you think I was normal sized. I’m sorry that I’m so stupid, please forgive me…” But instead of letting him speak, I just left the room as quickly as possible, I couldn’t believe what I had just said. As I was walking away he grabbed my hand and said : “I think you’re beautiful.” I had never been so relieved.

To be continued …