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And life hasn't, either. Gone according to plan, I mean. And I am grateful for that. Especially on a day like today. Which is the first day of November, of course. A day that will live in infamy for Cliff and I. And I get a small sweet moment to reflect on it this morning, and that's kind of nice.
We can always count on the Summer Olympics and Presidential Elections rotating in cycles of four years. And of course, we all know it has been the year for both. One brought great joy and cheering in our household (particularly because of a certain swimmer) and the other has been a fight to care/believe/hope/understand/not care/etc. Four years ago, I think it was the opposite for me. I barely paid attention to the Summer Olympics and was glued to the Presidential Election (and thankfully so).
Four years ago, today, I was a junior in College. I was the Student Coordinator of Towering Traditions and had just come back from a great weekend trip with the new Orientation Council to Chicago for a conference. This was me then:
Four years ago, today, it was the day before Election Day in the infamous run-off between Bush and Kerry. I knew who I was voting for in my very first election because I had just received confirmation of my absentee ballot and I was sitting in the Bunch Media Hall at the Library at Belmont, watching "FahrenHYPE 9/11", a documentary responding to the claims made in Michael Moore's famous "Fahrenheit 9/11."
A friend had convinced me to go, and though I hesitated, because anything having to do with 9/11 is a little too-close-to-home, I went. I mean, it was for convo credit, and in those days, you took anything you could get. I don't recall much of the film except for small moments of clarity regarding facts and truths about the historic event. After the movie, the lights came back on and the event hosts began a post-film discussion. Surprisingly, what took place was an interesting dialogue that became particularly interesting to me when a guy I hadn't ever recalled seeing on campus spoke up about people he knew from his time at West Point who were serving in Iraq.
Here's a snapshot of the mental trail that I soon began walking down:
West Point? Someone from the "long gray line" at Belmont? Really? This guy must have gotten lost on his way to the Athlete's House or something. He can't possibly have transferred from a place like West Point to Belmont. Is that a Polo shirt he's wearing? Without the collar flipped up and jeans so tight they're choking his private parts? Who IS this guy, anyway?
There was something particularly striking about this guy. Sure, he was attractive in that All-American guy next door sort of way. But that wasn't it. He was just different. A different I would never have thought would have been appealing, but it very much was.
You see, I had just finished a serious bout of unrequited love (or really, like) with the "man of my dreams." But let's be serious, there were a lot of those types of guys. None I dated, of course, only became really good friends with to sort of work my way into an equation I couldn't ever be taken out of. Except, I always was. They were the fun and creative, yet dreadfully non-committal, flaky, on-the-road-because-I'm-in-a-band sort of guys. And I just gravitated toward them. I had for years. They were the guys that wore shirts and pants far too small for their frames, had hair that was perfectly messy and yet styled forever to look that way, and were probably wearing chuck taylors or some other pair of shoes that were in at the time.
But this guy at the convo was so not that. And that was perplexing to me, especially to find him at a place like Belmont.
Luckily for me, this Mystery Man was armed with a convo scanner at the door I had to exit through on my way out of the event. And wouldn't you know, before I even had a chance to take my ID out of my handy-dandy ID holder, Mystery Man called me by name.
"It's Kristine, right?"
Time stopped in that very moment. Mystery Man knew my name. And then he told me his (but I should have been listening better, because we laugh to this day that all I heard was "Clint").
"My name is Cliff. I uh, transferred here from West Point and recognized you from orientation."
Duuu... uh.... wer.... I. I couldn't figure out what to say first, so I just said, "Nice to meet you! West Point, wow, that's a big change. My brother-in-law went there. How do you like Belmont so far?"
And then we chatted it up for what seemed like forever, but was probably only five to ten minutes, or so. It was all the normal exchanges of majors, hometowns, political opinions, etc but I had that feeling, which I thought was far too wishful, that I really wanted to know who this guy was. But that seemed unlikely, considering our class schedules, friend circles, and campus activities had kept our paths un-crossed this long already.
[Can I just mention that I'm eating yogurt and COMPLETELY missed my mouth with the last spoonful and now have a strange bird crap-like trail of yogurt on my shirt. Awesome.]
So, I floated on some sort of cloud on the walk home to The Commons, sighing more than is probably physically healthy. When I got home, I ran straight to Molly's room, hopped on her bed, and recounted this seemingly insignificant encounter with "Clint", speculating on the rare possibility of ever seeing him again. This small event had given me hope that there were really great men outside of the musician-type I had for so long been into. I would not believe it then as fully as I do, now, but it's sometimes the things that don't go according to plan that have the most effect on our lives.
And that first day and night of that November four years ago, I was happy and hopeful, wondering what might be in store for me next.
1 comment:
I have always loved this story!
and the eating yogurt "not according to plan" was priceless!!!
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