It was after 11:30 at night and the hall lights had gone off, leaving only the dim lights, that sit along the rim of the floor, to glow by themselves.
I had my keys ready to enter the cylinder, to turn them and let me escape inside the dorm room, but I didn't. I waited as my pulse counted out the seconds that ticked by. Truth was, I really didn't want to talk to my room mate. I didn't want to listen to that BarlowGirl CD for the 7th time, or hear her chew so loud that I was sure someone would come knocking on our door asking what was wrong.
I also didn't want to complain.
My fingers slipped from the key, to the lanyard, and back down to my side. I could hear her in the room singing softly to her self and that thought alone made me take an involuntary step back. I rolled my eyes, thinking about what a jerk I was, laughing at my (not so funny) silent sarcastic remarks.
It was when a burst of light from a door being opened and shut that changed my perspective. One girl in the 400+ that lived in my dorm, left the bathroom at that moment, distracting me from my harsh pondering.
As I turned to glance at the scratching noise the door made as it clicked shut, I caught my reflection in the lone window at the end of the hall. It wasn't a pretty window, in the middle of the pane hung the A/C unit and the warped texture of the glass was a dingy yellow color from all the years of weather damage. I took a step closer and realized some girls had taken pencils and sharpies to it, mentioning how Marisa and Anna were going to be "BFF's Forever!" And M. Hearts J. with smiley faces wrapped around it.
Yet that's not what drew me. It was the reflection itself. Not in the conceited "Who is that girl in the window she is fiiiiinnne!" It was simply the fact that as I looked at the girl I had no idea who I was staring at. The face was blended into the texture of the glass too well for there to be any defining features.
The eyes didn't shine, the teeth didn't show, and the posture was terrible.
As I looked at my reflection in self pity I wondered what it would be like to look at that window and see someone I recognized. Someone who would get over their complaints about the not 100% perfect room mate, someone who would smile at the pile of homework on the desk and think not a problem! I tore my gaze from the glass and looked around me, it was almost as if this could have been a movie scene, where either the reflection shows the murderer behind her, or a friend that comes up and taps her on the shoulder and apologizes for things that were done and said.
But this was not a movie and I did not have a choice in the plot.
Laughter came from the Lobby that was set just around the corner, I glanced that way then turned back to the reflection.
As hard as I tried I couldn't find my face there anywhere.
Not the blue eyes, or the non-existent lips or the nose that swept the tiniest bit to the right because of a rogue softball. It was just a blank face, on a blank window, on another blank day of my life.
I wanted to see the girl that had been so confident her senior year of High School. Good fun, better grades, and the best of friends. That's what I wanted, what I longed for, to be the big fish in the tiny fish bowl instead of the minnow in a really cold lake.
But she wasn't there; she was lost in the pool of insecurity that came with college. I leaned back against the wall and slid to the ground. I kept glancing back, at my now, half of a reflection. The A/C cut off the left side of my face, and I felt this was an ironic point. I wanted to see more of my true self and now I was half of the measly shape I'd been before.
After allowing my self 5 minutes of wallowing, I stood up and glanced one last time at the reflection. The epiphany hit as I turned away, that maybe if I had been more set on seeing the reflection of Jesus in that window instead of the "true" me, I wouldn't even have noticed that I couldn't see "me" at all.
Today, I stood in a Hallway.
