Alone. If I had to summarize the whole of my experiences over the past 3 months, that's the word I would choose.

As I sit on this bench overlooking the lovely empty lake (no sarcasm), I see both literal and figurative darkness, emptiness. I want nothing more than for someone to walk up and ask to sit beside me, to share this moment of depth and (classical, not hip-hop) music with me. To share my willingness to shed the masks and skins I wear everyday here, because no one understands. They’re not ready for me. I’m not ready for me in front of them, because I won’t be received, just repelled. Dominique, why are you so ideal? And not independent as you are supposed to be?

A friend. Is that so hard to find here? No, not the friend you share your dorm and hometown description with. The friend you share you with, what you’re thinking right now. I finally found it at home and didn’t know I had been seeking it all along, now I am here, cursed with knowing what I’m looking for. You have expectations, and they ruin it for you! Or do they? Well, they make it a hell of a lot harder to feel happy. The kind of happy you’ve felt here on occasion, home more than occasion. The joy of living, that quote you put on the board: “The joy of being alive became so concentrated in me I wanted to scream.”

Pity, pity. It’s so damn hard to express myself here. So much conformity. And at Stanford, of all places. See, there’s that expectation! The hip-hop generation. I don’t mind the music so much as I mind everything that it implies in its listeners. Followers, superficial, amputated from the old appreciation of the beautiful, the real, nature, love, kindness, friendship. And I use those words in the purest sense, not in the sense of love as just sex, kindness as boasted philanthropy, friendship as someone with whom you can make fun of that girl who listens to classical music down the hall.

What are people so passionate about here? I don’t see it, though they may have done a good job of portraying it on paper. As I look among the—still foreign—faces surrounding me in each classroom, I see boredom, sleep-deprivation, indifference, facebook. Everything but passion and compassion. Is it really there? I want to believe it is, but my idealism has let me down too many times for me to be certain. Does everyone have a hard time opening up, then? Opening up to me?

You haven’t tried it all; come to think of it, you haven’t tried much. Patience, something I used to have. It’s just hard to wait when you’re alone. Why so much negativity associated with that word? Oh, I don’t know.

Is no one else here a freak? Am I the only monster who wishes to speak in a stream of consciousness as frequently as possible (current f: 0)? Who wants to defy convention, to stay up till 3 not on the computer with her face turned from the breathing, living, thinking, feeling beings next to her but forming deep connections with those beings? Talking about the power of love, the “gaze” of the entire world, where all is impersonal and no one sees through your sometimes fake smile. But also about the poetry of life, the happiness of a single moment. The million judgments we make about someone in the blink of an eye, turning our backs to real friendship. How we are at Stanford worrying about getting a B in IHUM while instead we should be worrying about all the amazing, inspirational people we don’t know, don’t—but should—care about. After all, “love is all you need.”

We wouldn’t even have to talk about all that and the meaning of life. With the right person, talking about the weather can be (and has been for me) the most meaningful conversation ever had. All it takes is that eye contact, that simple, genuine penetration into the soul/inside. That level of understanding, just that we are both humans who care, love, and, most importantly, are not perfect. Just the acknowledgment that yes, it is hard here without mom and dad, with no one to take care of you when you are stuck in bed in excruciating pain with a fever on your birthday. Just a nod yes that our shoulders are there when we need the support (or somewhere to rest our tear-stained faces), that it’s ok to be unhappy here! Just a hug. I haven’t had a real hug in too long…