This Body is Killing My Soul

THE PAST…There are a few things I remember about my second semester at Albion College. I remember that my mom blamed my first semester roommate for my poor performance. My mom is someone to be reckoned with. The two jocks in the double room with the private bath at the end of the hall both flunked out. Somehow, my mom managed to get me into that room as a single despite all of the kids who wanted to obtain it for other purposes. My mom was certain (no doubt based on excuses I had provided) that my first semester roommate was the key reason why my grades were so low. If she could only get me in a private room where I could study and focus, everything would be ok.

I remember my thirty-gallon fish tank pot. By the middle of the semester, it was more of a science experiment. It was filled with algae and other forms of growth, which could only exist on a college campus.

I remember my friends rushing the Sigma Chi house and me following along. Somehow, I got a tagalong bid and was soon rushing Sigma Chi as well. I was largely invisible back in those days. I did not stand out good or bad. People liked me, but I wasn’t the first person or even the tenth person you invited to your party. My friends were invited. That’s good enough for me. Somehow, I ended up following at the back of the line.

I remember walking across campus late one night, no doubt buzzed on who knows what. I remember telling my friend, James Couvelis, "This body is killing my soul." I don’t know where the line came from. I don’t know why it stuck in my mind or in Jim’s mind. We still talk about that moment in time today.

I’ve always had a sense of what I must have meant when I made this statement. I felt that sensation deep inside me until about 1995. It was a very clear sense that I was born in the wrong time, at the wrong moment in history. I had always known since I was a young that I was different. I had always believed that I was different bad. In college, my friends gave me a sense of self which led me to rethink my conclusion. But we’ll talk more about that later. Freshman year at Albion, my body was killing my soul. It wasn’t that I didn’t belong at Albion, or in the State of Michigan or in the United States of America. I did not belong in the year 1982. I was either ahead or before my time. I didn’t know which but I was certain there had been a mistake. My spirit was repressed, tied up and gagged somewhere deep inside me. At the time, I didn’t even know it was there. Or perhaps I was starting to know. One thing is for certain. I had one enlightened moment out of nowhere. I now had a statement which seemed to identify me. My body was killing my soul. I knew it. But there was nothing I could do about it. My friend Jim and I kept walking, no doubt to the Sigma Chi house. Little did I know that I was about to start finding my way. I could see the purple lights on the horizon. The lights were out there. They were calling my name. I was being drawn in. I was not the type of person to resist anything. I was adrift. I could hear the thump of the base from the fifteen-inch woofers.