When I got into the University of Tennessee, it was the best thing that had happened to me thus far. When I sent my application for the spring semester, I promised myself I’d go if they accepted me…and they did. I spent a lot of time gathering documents to prove my in-state tuition eligibility and searching for apartments. I had a nice job, a good school routine, friends and a boyfriend I was going to leave behind to dive into the unknown and start over completely new. When I packed up my car on that cold January day and drove eight hours to Knoxville, I didn’t know a single person at UT. I filled out a questionnaire to match me with roommates who had a similar lifestyle and off I went. I had my own room and bathroom inside a four person apartment with a trio of girls who had already spent the previous semester living together. For the first few weeks, I took the shuttle to school and came right back to my room every day. I’d shut myself up in my room until it was time to go to sleep. Aside from living with my older brother as a kid, I had never lived with anyone else or shared a space. I felt very lonely the first month and either drove to my dad’s house on Sundays or took the bus home to DC with my grocery money on Thursday nights.
About a month into living in Knoxville and successfully isolating myself from everyone, including my three roommates, I got very sick. Still to this day, it was probably one of the worst flus I’ve ever had. My whole body ached and I could barely get up to refill my water. One of my roommates, Mary, noticed that I was in there all day and not going to class. She went to the grocery store and got medicine and soup without me asking her to do so. She came in and checked on me every few hours and told my mom she was looking after me. As a person who’s never been good at asking for help, this take charge attitude caught me off guard, in a good way.
Mary and I had talked a handful of times before this and I knew she was studying to become a doctor. She took organic chemistry and spent her weekends at Hodges Library studying or working double shifts at her restaurant job on Kingston Pike. She was constantly moving and always pragmatic about it. After I got better, we became friends. We started riding to school, making dinners and going to parties or bars together. That year, I didn’t want to go home to see my boyfriend for spring break because we were in an argument. On the morning I was supposed to make the eight hour journey, I told her my hesitation. She suggested instead of going north, we pack our swimsuits and spontaneously drive to Florida instead. So we did.
I had a dream about Mary last night and the apartment we used to live in—not the first one, but our second one that overlooked the Tennessee river. I was walking down the hallway and she was standing in the living room asking me if I was ready to go. I’m sure I dreamt about her because I thought of this flu story yesterday. I’m sick now and the feeling while not quite as bad, is somewhat similar. My body aches, my head feels like it’s going to explode and I’m oscillating between freezing cold and sweating my ass off. I laid on the couch yesterday thinking about how helpless you feel when you’re ill and how hard it is to do every day tasks. I mustered up the strength to get Russell outside and on a decent walk so he could stretch his legs and use the bathroom. This must be the kind of reserve parents pull from when they still need to take care of others despite being knocked down. I’ve felt this on both a physical and emotional level in recent times.
Anyway, I’m sitting at my desk with a piping hot water bottle on my lap. My chest feels like it’s on fire from my violent coughs and I’m convinced there’s an invisible rubber band fastened around my head. It would be the only explanation for my unrelenting, splitting headache. I was just feeling a little nostalgic about that winter almost eleven years ago and my life then. It was in fact the best decision I had made as an adult up until my one to move to Germany, I think. Otherwise my life would be on a completely different trajectory. Also, I would have never met Adam or Russell!! I don’t want to go down that Ebenezer Scrooge timeline. I like things just as they are, despite my current cold.