Do I Dare Disturb My Universe?

Do I Dare Disturb My Universe?       College, the Final Frontier.  The Great Leap into the unknown.  The Best time of your life.  These going away cards need to get a little bit more original.  This day has already been hell for me, why not add a little bit of boredom and unoriginality into the mix while your at it.  I hate being the center of attention.  I don’t know why my parents wanted to have this going away party.  I don’t want to see the extended family.  I only usually see them once or twice a year, so what do they care that I’m going away to college?  I would see them the exact same amount.  I begged my mom not to have this thing, but of course, she didn’t listen.  I don’t even think she wanted to have this party for me, she just wanted to show the house off again.  And now I have to put up with an entire day of cheek pinching, big, uncomfortable hugs and a whole lot of questions about “My future.”  Like I’m even thinking about that right now.  I mean, my god, I move across the country in two days.  The only thing on my mind right now is “What the hell do I think I’m doing.”  Moving from Seattle to Boston.  I could have gone to the UW, but nooooo, I had to go and choose Boston College.  No changing it now though.  Once I get there, it’ll be ok, at least I think it will.  Its the leaving thats hard.  Having to say goodbye to all of my friends and family.  I dread goodbyes.  Therefore I am dreading tomorrow. But first, I have to get through tonight.. By  7:00 pm, I‘m already tired.  I can only hope that everyone will be gone by 9 or so, but I know that's pretty much just wishful thinking.  I just want to go back up to my room, put some Pearl Jam on the Stereo and read some Vonnegut.  But of course no such luck.  I just need to sit here with a gracious smile on my face, and listen to my uncle, father and brother in law sit here and banter about work.  What fun. Time has slowed to almost a standstill.  Every minute that passes feels like an hour, and I can think of about 200 more valuable things I could be doing with my time.  I haven’t even started packing yet.  By noon tomorrow, my life needs to be neatly packed up and ready to ship.  This is going to take a hell of a long time.  Why was I so adamant about going to Boston College?  I mean, everything I know has to either be packed up into a small box, or left behind.  I keep planning things in my head, and making little lists for myself.  I hate having things hanging over my head.  I swear to god, this night is going to drive me insane. Finally I am able to sneak upstairs under the guise of having “Stomach Problems.”  All I need is some amount of alone time.  I need to be able to collect my thoughts.  Usually I can conduct myself under pressure,  but this is too much.  I close the doors to my bedroom, and then I lay on my bed, close my eyes, and then try to separate one feeling from another.  Its almost impossible to do.  There is just too much happening.  I don’t know how much longer I can possibly stand it.  All I can figure out is that I am exhausted, and before I know it, I have fallen asleep. I get woken up an hour later by my father, who seems as mad as hell that I had the nerve to do this.  Although I show no outward signs, the inside of me feels completely shaky as if I am about to  fall apart.  I need to hold myself together.  That’s all I need to do. Get through this minute by minute. Luckily, within fifteen minutes of my re-emergence, people had begun to file out. I say my goodbyes, and act as if I will miss them dramatically, but its all a lie.  To tell you the complete truth, I can’t feel anything that is happening.  I am simply empty.  And of course, as soon as everyone leaves, my father looks at me disapprovingly, and says in that stern voice of his, “Thats not an appropriate way to treat company.”  Thanks a lot dad.  That was just the exact thing I needed to hear at this time.  I just want to scream at him, make him realize that what I just did was a small, small fraction of anything that he used to do.  The goddamn hypocrite.  I swear to god, sometimes I don’t even feel as if he gives a shit about me, always telling me what I should be doing, and what I’ve done wrong.  Its a strange day in the McCormack household to hear about something we’ve done well.  I know that he loves me,  I just don’t know if he likes me, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t proud of me.  The only son in a family with a strong sports tradition.  And he doesn’t like sports. I always knew this bothered my father, but not fully until my freshman year, when he made me play football.  Every day, he would come and sit by the edge of the practice field, not so much to watch, but more to make sure I wasn’t doing this half assed.  To make sure that I was involved in every moment, because maybe then I would learn to love sports.  But I’ve got news for you pops, it didn’t.  It just made me hate them even more.  So, I’ve known that I’m a disappointment to you, dad, just let it go.  By the time my dad is finished with his speech, I don’t respond, just look at him and then go upstairs to my room, and lay on my bed.  And I’m crying.  I’m fucking crying.  I haven’t cried since I was nine.  But I can’t help it.  I just can’t hold myself in check anymore.  I’m too exhausted, and I just don’t have it in me.  Before I know it, I’m asleep. Chap2 I woke the next morning to the face of my cat.  She always does this, waits for me to wake up so that I can pet her.  I pull myself out of bed, already fully clothed, and go into the morning.  Jesus, I look like shit.  The only solution I can think of is to splash water on my face, and then get started on my day.  I take out some of the boxes, unfold them, and simply start piling my clothes into them.  Taking my life out of my dresser, and packing it neatly away in a box.  I realize that this is going to be a lot simpler than I previously thought.  I don’t have that much, and I just need to make sure that anything that might break is hidden away within the softer things.  I know that inevitably something will get broken, as it always does, but I just need to try my best to shield this crap.  It would be a lot easier if I didn’t have it. Midway through the afternoon, my mom stops by to see how my packing is going.  After a little bit of trivial conversation, she looks at me and informs me that my dad does love me. I just reply that I know, just so I can get on to doing something that doesn’t require any emotions or real thought.  I just want to get this shit packed up and shipped and not have to worry about it.  Even though I know that I’ll just have to unpack it again soon, but still, for those couple of days I just don’t have to worry about it. By the time I’m done, and the package is shipped, its around five, just the time for us to go and meet my sister and brother in law for dinner.  This is going to be hard, and I know this.  Dinner is a very casual affair, with out much talk about my leaving except for the random “Good Luck” or “I’m really going to miss you,” and quite frankly I’m very grateful for this.  The end is what’s hard.  My sister starts to cry, and so does my brother in law, and I suppress my tears.  I just tell them I will call them often, and then we get in our cars and leave.  And that’s it.  And 24 hours later, I’m in Boston with my parents.  As we flew into the city, I silently looked out the window, and was able to see the city that I would call home for the next several years.  And for the first time in a long while I felt hope.  Hope for what these next years would bring, hope for a new life, just plain hope.  And it felt good.  But just as soon as that emotion came, so did a wealth of others, emotions that were not nearly as welcome.  So instead of dealing with them as much as I could, I simply did the only thing I knew how to do:  I bottled them up.  And once again I felt nothing.  Once again, I was completely objective.  Once again, I was empty. Fast Forward through the next couple days.  Basically stayed at a hotel, received the packages, got the essentials for college.  Nothing too exciting.  But then came moving day.  And what a day that was.  We piled everything we had brought into the car, and drove to the school.  The car ride was almost dead silent.  That was probably mostly my fault though.  I didn’t want to talk about anything, so I probably replied to any questions asked of me in a very short manner.  But I felt it was one of those times where silence was golden.  The less talk, the less emotion, the easier everything is.  Side note:  I just realized how much I’ve been talking about emotion, but obviously, I’ve been thinking about it a lot.  I sometimes just don’t understand it, because it makes certain things so hard to do.  Life in general would be so much easier without any emotion, but then again, it would be a lot less interesting.  But sometimes I feel like I would take easy path over the interesting one.  As we approached the school, a line of cars began to form. As I looked into the other cars, I started to feel slightly less alone. In at least forty percent of the cars I saw the faces of people who were scared shitless.  Starting to feel slightly more relaxed, I tried to start up some light conversation with my parents.  Fairly soon, we pulled onto campus and were directed to my dorm.  Collins hall, number 416.  My new home.  Its a nice enough place.  Fairly homey, compared to most other dorms.  Its long, but not too tall.  Only about 5 stories.  It is made with mostly brick, but has an oddly colonial feel to it.  I grab my first suitcase and lug it up the fours flights of stairs.  I walked down the hall, trying to find my room, and in every other room I passed was another family saying goodbye, dealing with the loss of a loved one.  Trying to prolong the last moment of childhood.  And then at last I find my room. I give a quick knock before I enter the code on the keypad door lock and go in.  i am greeted with the sight of a room that is only slightly larger than my medium sized bedroom at home.  The beds are bunked and placed against the left wall, and there are two dressers opposite of the beds.  There is a desk next to the dressers, as well as one next to the beds.  There are signs that someone has been living here for a little while, with stuff strewn across the desk near the dressers, as well as a TV on the shelf.  My new roommate gets up quickly from his chair to greet me.  He’s fairly short, but thin and athletic.  He has straight brown hair, and seems like an amiable sort of guy.  “Hey, I’m Erik Kovzic.  You must be Liam. Sorry about where everything is.  We can change it around if you want.”  I look around, and notice that he was watching Army of Darkness when I walked in.  At that point I knew that we would get along just fine.  Chap 3 Slightly after I had entered my room, my parents also came in, followed by volunteers carrying the rest of my stuff.  When you box everything up, it seems so small and insignificant, but i know that as soon as the box is opened, the room will become a mess, and my stuff will be all over the place.  It’ll take a while to put everything away again, but I’ll be able to do it.  My parents look around the room, and introduce themselves to Erik.  We then sit down and talk for a short while, and then they get ready to go.  My mother starts to cry a little bit and gives me a huge hug and a kiss.  My dad sticks out his hand, and wishes me luck, and he tells me that they will call as soon as they get back home.  And they leave.  I watch them get into the car and drive off to the airport, and I know that my childhood has gone with them.  My new life has now officially started. I unpack all my stuff, starting of course with my clothes.  This part is easy.  I just stick the stuff into drawers and I don’t have to think about it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  But then comes the decorating.  Trying to build yourself a new home one poster at a time.  It’s a meager beginning, but a start none the less.  A couple hours later, the room has a somewhat interesting décor, but its my own.  By this time, I’m pretty tired, but I make myself try and get to know my roommate better.  “So, Erik, do you like it here so far?” “Yeah.” I see that he’s about as talkative as a dead fish, and I really don’t have the energy or willpower to shock some life into him. So, I go down the hall and find my way to the bathroom.  Its getting late, so I just wash up, and make my way back down the hall.  Surprisingly, no one else seems to be around.  I savor the moment of silence and solitude, and make my way back to my room slowly.  When I get back, I let Erik know that I am going to try my luck at sleeping.  He replies that he should do the same,  and so he crawls into the bottom bunk as I struggle to climb up to the top bunk (Here’s a little tip for everyone out there: never have the tall, fat guy sleep on the top bunk).  The lights are off, and before long I hear the heavy, rhythmic breathing of slumber from the bunk below me.  But sleep won’t come for me.  I lay and stare up at the pure white ceiling, and I let thoughts flow through my mind.  For once, I am able to let everything I am thinking of enter my consciousness, and then it happens.  Suddenly, everything seems beautiful.  The sound of the cars passing by on the street outside.  The steady rumble of the fan, and the feeling of the wind as it blows against my skin.  For a brief moment, everything seems to make sense, and I feel as if I am a person worthy of living on this planet.  And just as quickly as that moment comes, it disappears.  And in the wake of the fullness that encompassed me but a moment before, any feeling seems muted .But in that moment I am able to discover that I am connected to life, that I’m not hollow.  That singular moment gives me the energy to strive towards another time when I can feel that way.  When I wake in the morning, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.  Excitement.  Excitement to start my day and see what it brings.  Excitement to see what the future holds.  And most of all, excitement to be alive another day, and to be a part of the thing that is called life. * * * * * * Most of the morning passes without much acclaim.  I unpack the rest of my things, and surprisingly, nothing has been broken in the transition.  I never realized how much stuff I had.  By noon, the boxes have been collapsed, and I am now fully in my new home.  I am planned to register for my classes that afternoon, so I break out the course catalogue and see what interests me.The very beginning of a novel that I am currently working on. Its about the first year of college and the self discovery that occurs. If you all like it, I will post some more! Written April 9th, 2002 © on Apr 08 2002 05:55 PM PST   0 • 10