A friend here at Ursinus, Alonzo, just left my room after talking for almost three hours since eleven O'clock. We see each other occasionally and say hello, and recently when I see him around he asks why he never sees me (as some people do, because I'm always holing myself up in my dorm doing school work) and he says it half jokingly but half serious. I could tell it seemed like he sort of wanted to talk and I'd been hoping we'd get a chance to hang out soon. Tonight happened to be that time.
I was being semi productive in my dorm doing a bio lab worksheet when there was a faint knock on my door, but I knew it wasn't anyone I normally talk to that comes to my room because I never get a faint, light knock like this. I actually wasn't entirely sure if someone had knocked until I happened to see, from my bed, the peephole on my door darken with someone standing in front of it. I said "come on in" and it happened to be Alonzo. We'd never really talked much before so I was sort of surprised he just came to my dorm. One of the first things he said was to bring up how he never sees me, which kind of amused me. He came by with some school stuff and to see what I was up to, and we momentarily talked about a question on the bio worksheet but then began to just, talk. I mostly listened, which I was happy to do because I enjoy hearing about other people and their stories and wanted to actually get to know him. He's from Guyana, lived there for twelve years and has an accent, which I think sounds pretty cool. Although, I think most accents sound more interesting than the more plain American accents (or so it seems plain to me, as someone born and raised in American). We talked about relationships briefly, and I especially liked how he said he was still sort of getting used to the atmosphere here and thinking differently (which I think most of us are). What he meant, and explained, was that he is getting used to thinking for himself in a way other than how he was told to think growing up. I loved that point because I feel like this is somehting most of us here (and likely at all colleges) are getting used to doing, and some people don't break away from how they were raised to think and don't begin to think critically for themselves. But, I asked for examples. One example, that I think can be a big thing depending where you grow up or how you are raised, is when he mentioned being in touch with your own sexuality and just being yourself. Exploring yourself, acting more freely. One of the benefits to a more liberal atmosphere is that there is less judgement and we can act freely and explore as well as express ourselves. This is certainly true for me as well. We didn't go deep into how he specifically was raised and told to think in terms of this point, but it did make me think of how since we are little, to different degrees, we are taught to be almost shameful of sexuality and that it can be a negative thing and sometimes even taboo. It is, of course, perfectly natural though and there is no reason to suppress sexuality. Sexuality and being a sensuous person (although being sensuous is certainly not restricted to sex) is one of the most natural and thrilling aspects of life. It is extremely pleasurable and something that should be valued. We can learn a lot about ourselves through our sexuality in terms of basic realizations such as what we do and do not prefer, things such as whether we have desires such as being a dominant or submissive person (which may be a result of our personality) or even coming accepting our more hidden sexual desires. We can express ourselves in an entirely different light as well as enjoy life and experience it in a way very different than most other aspects from which we derive joy, pleasure, inspiration or even spirituality.
We talked about drugs as well, how we had both only experienced weed (and greatly enjoy it), and also talked about how I plan on trying psychedelic mushrooms and/or possibly in the future, LSD. He's been curious about LSD too and thinks he wants to try it at some point. We went int that somewhat in depth and when the topic of psychedelics like that being dangerous, I began to explain what I had learned from researching them, although I'm not going to take up time to explain what more we talked about with how the drugs work.
I asked him about Guyana and if he missed it, to which he said he did a little sometimes, but he does not get very attached to a lot of things. I also am the same way in some respects, and when he brought up how sometimes he worries about the fact that certain things don't affect him, I talked about how I used to worry about the same exact thing. He brought up the death of a close family member that hadn't affected him so much, and the closest example I had was when my older brother and I were home alone and my mom woke me up with a call saying he was on the bathroom floor unable to breathe (he managed to call her). I went in and he was nearly suffocating, and while on the phone with my parents they called an ambulance, I sat him up and tried to get him to be able to take in air, and then drug him into the hall where it was cooler and not steamy from the shower. He could barely breathe and I kept pushing him up and keeping him awake and breathing as he kept trying to slump over until the paramedics got there. The entire time, I was absolutely calm and not worried in the slightest. I am, however, used to him being injured and in serious situations (he was also indirectly struck by lighting while swimming and had a gun to his chest in Reading, PA one night) so that may have been part of it. But I had also worried about my own detachment form the situation. We talked about that topic for a bit, and had good conversation on it.
We spent time talking about school work too and how he loves to write, which I think is fantastic. He'd love to be a writer and likes writing fiction as well as poetry. It was obvious he does truly love writing and would like to be a writer, and Alonzo is obviously a smart and thoughtful person who has a lot of ideas that he could use for writing material. It was just great getting to know someone else and talking for hours like this, making a new friend.
What stuck to me was right as he was leaving, I think hinting at us not talking before and me not being as socially outgoing sometimes because of school work, he said "All you've got to do is not be a stranger." Out of nowhere he came to my room, knocked, and we talked for a couple hours straight. These are moments that really make me happy and appreciate people. I really took that away from our talk tonight. All you've got to do is not be a stranger.
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