When I Met Him

p r o l o g u e

College had always seemed so crucial, such an essential part of what measures a person's worth and determines their future. We live in a time where people ask which school you went to before asking your last name. From an early age I was taught, trained really, to prepare for my education. It had become this necessity that required an overwhelming amount of preparation and borderline obsession. Every class I chose, every assignment I completed since my first day of high school revolves around getting into college — my mother had it set in her mind that I attend Washington Central University, the same school she attended, but never completed.

I had no idea there'd be so much more to college than academics. I had no idea that choosing which electives to take during my semester would seem, just a few months later, like trivial affairs. I was naïve, and in some ways I still am. But I couldn't have possibly known what lay ahead of me. Meeting my dorm mate was intense and awkward from the start, and meeting her wild group of friends even more so. They were so different from anyone I had ever known and I was intimidated by their appearance, confused by their pure inattention to structure. I quickly become apart of their madness, indulging in it... And that's when he crept into my heart.

From our first encounter, Leo changed my life in ways that no amount of college prep courses or youth group lectures could have. Those movies I watched as a teen quickly became my life, and those ridiculous plot lines became my reality. Would I have done anything differently if I had know what was to come? I'm not sure. I would love to give a straight answer to that, but I can't. At times I am grateful, so utterly lost in the moment of passion that my judgement is clouded and all I can see is him. Other times, I think of the pain he caused me, the deep sting of loss for who I had been, the chaos of those moments when I felt as if my world had been turned upside down, and the answer isn't as clear as it once was.

All that I'm certain of is that my life and my heart will never be the same, not after Leo crashed into them.