Why, Sarah?
A few days ago, I was sitting in my room, minding my own business.
Suddenly, Sarah (my roommate) comes in.
“Is it okay if I move some of the stuff around?” She asks, and I see Jenny (another girl from our floor) close on her heels.
“Sure!” I said, thinking that she is moving around the refrigerators or the TV or something.
Unfortunately, this was not on her mind.
Sarah ended up moving around the ENTIRE ROOM.
She put all of my stuff under my loft bed on MY side of the room, while all of her stuff went under her bed on HER side of the room. You understand, right?
“What?” Was all I could muster after I had been calmly typing on my computer, and I turn around to a construction zone.
“That’s better…” Sarah said, ignoring my question.
About a few seconds after she finished completely with moving, she left the room to go bowling, and a bewildered Jillian was left behind.
I was so confused.
When she came back from bowling, I told her that we needed to have a little discussion, and that is exactly what we did.
I decided to break the ice after the awkward pause that signified the start of our ‘discussion’.
“I just have a quick question…” I started cautiously, not wanting to waste any time in case she had to suddenly get up and go. “Why did you decide today?”
And so it began.
I asked her why she picked today, with no warning, to move around all our stuff. I told her that I thought she was just going to move around the TV or the fridges or something like that, but I said I was surprised that she moved around the entire room.
I asked if I was pissing her off in any way, and I wanted her to tell me if she was having troubles.
She said that I spend too much time in the room.
I said that we both spend an equal amount of time in the room. She said that she is always over at Kari and Jessi’s room to be “Alone”.
I said that I was confused, she wanted to be alone and yet she didn’t mind Kari and Jessi’s company as compared to mine.
She didn’t say anything to that.
I was pissed, but I made sure to not be so aggressive that I pissed her off. I just wanted to make sure I got my point across and how I felt, ya’ know?
She said that she just wanted her space, and then gave me some bullshit about how her chair was all cramped in the corner because my chair was taking over.
I said that she should have spoken up about her feelings instead of being aggressive and just moving all of our stuff around.
Again, she had no comment.
Finally, I asked her why she chose today, four days before Thanksgiving Break, when we will be a whole WEEK away from each other, to do this move.
“You could have told me that something was bothering you, mentioning that maybe you wanted to separate our stuff after Thanksgiving Break or even before,” I said calmly, “You could have mentioned something instead of taking drastic changes into your own hands.”
Again, no comment from Sarah.
“I don’t know how you are feeling Sarah, you don’t talk to me. This isn’t going to hurt me, no offense. I mean, I own the TV and all of the electronic equipment, you understand that right?”
Yeah, she understood.
I took a time out to look obviously around the room. Her side of the room consisted of her loft bed, and under that was her chair, her refrigerator and her storage bins. I looked under my loft bed which housed my refrigerator, the TV, the VCR, the DVD player, the PS2, all of the games and moves, and my butterfly chair. Sure, it looked a little cramped, but it was compromiseable…
“I guess I’m just a little confused is all,” I said finally, looking back at Sarah.
Nothing.
No “I’m sorry I moved everything around today.”
No “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions, maybe we should work out our differences and move everything back.”
I realized now that she was bad at confrontations. I gave her a minute to think about what I had said.
“Do you like it?” She said quietly, after what seemed like a million light-years had passed.
Do I LIKE IT? What the…???!!!
“No, Sarah. I hate to say that I don’t like it.” I said with a stern tone of a final note.
She just…stopped talking.
I was left with more questions than answers from when we started this conversation.
I decided to tell my friend, Joanette, about the whole situation.
“GIRL! I would be SOO upset! I mean, I would understand her feelings, but don’t you work an’ stuff an’ all?” She said.
Yeah, that was exactly MY thoughts, and Joanette had just brought it forward in my mind.
Why had I NOT brought up the subject of jobs and how we are both out of the room at different times, and how I also volunteer.
Was my brain in a jam?
No, but I noticed the days following that Sarah didn’t talk to me; a HUGE improvement, if I do say so myself.