Riccochet
<<2003-02-28 - 4:07 p.m.>>

Give me a soft place.

I want to curl up in a ball and let Tim wrap his arms around me. Or Megan. I want to let it all out. But it fights its way to the surface at the most inopportune times. Outside. In public.

Last night at dinner, Kara came by and ignored me entirely, Rowen said she had too much work to do to be able to go to the Feminist Student Union meeting, and I casually extended an invitation to the two people with whom I was sitting: Miriam and Robert, a casual acquaintance. And I don't know why they came, because Robert seemed entirely apathetic and Miriam, rather predictably, was hostile.

"Why is it only a women's speakout?" she asked me as the meeting dissipated.

I pointed out that it was for women and transgendered folk, and that there was a second event for people of all genders. I said that it was a long-standing tradition and that some people need that environment.

And she started to ask some pointed follow-up question, and I said something along the lines of "Don't ask me these questions. It's not my responsibility to answer these questions." And I sounded furious. Legitimately, I was pretty angry. It's like she's elected me Representative of Feminism, and everything that she doesn't like she brings to me, even though she knows how I feel and knows it's a charged issue for me these days. At dinner she'd said something along the lines of that she wanted to get off the Queer Alliance mailing list because although she likes the news announcements, she doesn't like listening to people whine, whine, whine all the time, you know?

I said "No, I don't know, but I'll nod anyway."

Translation: stop talking to me about this.

It's escapism. It's playing ostrich.

In any case, my anger stopped her dead in her tracks and she looked kind of scared and she said I was angry, and I, against all logic said no, no, I wasn't angry, I mean really, why would I be angry, would it make sense to be angry just because she was being ridiculous and passive-aggressive? Seriously, I said. Not angry. Nuh-uh. And there was an uncomfortable moment when we, all three of us (because yes, Robert was still there watching us grit tensely at each other) started to go our separate ways, which was tense because almost always when I'm with Miriam or Rowen or Kara I go back up to the room with them and sit and study, and it wasn't like I wanted to last night, but the fact that she didn't want me to made me angrier, and so when Robert had wandered off I called to her. I said, once again, that I wasn't angry. She said she didn't know why people couldn't just be people.

For fuck's sake, feminists aren't the ones keeping people from being people. People who point out incidences of bias are not at fault for the schism that said bias creates.

And I started to cry, because I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. I suddenly felt that rush of grief, that feeling of being swept away and very small and trying to keep afloat amidst a tearing surge. But I held onto it, bit down hard (good girl), and just got a little weepy and said it was just that I've been upset lately, that my therapist says it's tough for me not to have a safe place. Et cetera. She gave me a brief, terse hug, and went upstairs.

I started to walk back to the dorm, back to my room where I can't rest, where I have to be ever-vigilant, and I just couldn't. It was like the feeling sitting in Starbucks that day over winter break. I just couldn't go back. No safe place.

I stopped by Megan's room. She wasn't in. I left a note on the door to the effect that I really needed someone to talk to, and I stamped down on the urge to sit down on her staircase and sob, and I walked home and went numb. Sat down at the computer. Spaced out.

Time passes (an hour?). Megan calls. And instantly I get choked up again, the tears rush to my throat, and I ask if I can come over, and she agrees, and I grab my coat and key and make my way to her room and stumble in the darkness through the outer room's clutter to her door and knock and she's there and her room is so safe, neat and calm and Megan-ish, and I sit down in her recliner and start, for the eight thousandth time in the past two weeks, to cry.

I don't know what to say, really, because honestly, I have never done this before. I have never gone to a friend and said I'm sad. Please can I talk to you? It was a new thing. I said I felt unsafe. Felt scared. Was having a hard time this semester. Didn't go into the backstory. But she hugged me and then she held my hand as I talked and it did feel good just to get it out, and I told her so, and then we talked about emotional maturity and feminism and therapy. And then she had to go meet Chris, but it was okay, I felt better, I felt not so cavernous inside, and she said I should read Cunt and lent me her copy and I took it home feeling a bit more stable and fell asleep with it open by my head.

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