Veritatem dilexi; or “I delight in the truth.”
Well, my ten-year Bryn Mawr College reunion starts today, and I’m super excited to get to see my old classmates. I actually dragged Grant along this time, which I didn’t do for the five-year back in 2008. I just… he’s such a huge part of my happiness as a stable, sound, no-longer-nineteen adult, you know? And he’s also a huge part of my success as an entrepreneur, since I met him on Craigslist way back in the day.
And aw shucks, I’m usually kind of shy about posting this link because it’s full of profanity and intentionally crappy capitalization/etc. because I foolishly tried to disguise my otherwise recognizable writing. (Yes, random people on Craigslist could identify a “Virginia” post back in the day, no problem.) But here’s the link. I mean, it must be good if it made best of. But here’s an excerpt too, so you know what you’re getting yourself into:
I’ve resolved to look for that great boyfriend-material guy who, even though he’s probably totally just as wigged out by creepy crawlies as me, will pretend to be all macho and come fucking kill them violently for me, at my place if need be, despite the inconvenience of having to leave home at 11 pm on a weeknight, just to put my mind at ease, because that’s just how great of a guy he is – or alternately, who will at least lie convincingly to me if he missed and let the spider get away like I did, and convince me he killed it and all, so it’ll put my mind at ease so I can get some fucking rest already, and who’d maybe stay the night anyway just to make sure I really am okay from that trauma, because I had nightmares about spiders ALL NIGHT LONG and I’d rather have a nice comfy spider-slayer to snuggle up to all night long, ya know?
Bryn Mawr played a huge part in helping me become the person I am today, who has the confidence and poise to run her own business. I mention this a little bit in this article from the May 2011 Bryn Mawr alumnae magazine, but I wish we’d had more time to enumerate the ways in which my alma mater helped forge me. So I’m doing that a little bit here!
Bryn Mawr taught me confidence, and never to doubt my own intelligence or ideas. It also taught me (painfully at times) to back down a bit and let others have the spotlight, since my own presence could overwhelm shyer souls. It taught me that even though I’m a massive procrastinator, working hard and meeting deadlines comes easily to me when I’m fixated on something that empassions me, like my 4.0 Swarthmore senior linguistics thesis. And it taught me a lot about love, loss, heartache, relationships, and that sometimes it’s valuable to be single even if you’d rather be paired up. In the long run, it taught me how to not give off that starving-for-love stench of desperation that can really work against you when you’re trying to date, haha. And, more than anything else, it taught me that I prefer to be with men romantically, but that there’s no reason to hide from mentioning my past romances with women.
Seriously, that last one is really important. I don’t much care for the term “bisexual,” since it has a lot of really ugh incorrect connotations like Girls Gone Wild and a 50% split between genders and a general sense of promiscuity. None of those ever rang true for me, but still; when I open up about the fact that I’ve dated women even though I’m primarily straight, most decent, cool people of all orientations and genders feel a certain kinship. I’ve met more casually bi people than you ever might have realized are out there, and we’re all grateful when you don’t put us in an unflattering or inaccurate box. So hey, the rest of the world: please don’t fucking do that. 🙂
Anyway, my good ole alma mater means a lot to me. I’m so excited to get my nerdy fun on with a bunch of other alumnae! (Which is pronounced alumn-EYE in the original Latin, in case you were wondering; and the male collective plural “alumni” is actually pronounced alum-NEE. And that’s the kind of comment I could make at Bryn Mawr and well into my adult life with mostly positive responses, because I’ve always had a thing for geeks who love geeky things. So there.)