i just had one of the more difficult experiences in my life. it wasn’t a midterm, it wasn’t a final, it wasn’t even riding my bike up the big hill right before reaching my dorm. this is going to be hard and kind of weird for me to write, but i feel like i need to express myself here right now.

i rode my bike there. it was probably three fourths of a mile or so. it seemed so much longer. on the way there, a guy passed me on his bike and said “your bike just makes me smile” (i have a pink sparkly bike). “thanks” i said. how the fuck can he be thinking about my bike when there are so many other important things that i’m worried about right now? i thought. not as if he could have known. he was just a random bike rider. why do i expect him to know what’s going on inside of me?

when i got to the health center, i stood in front of the door for a while. i thought it would be easy. after all, it’s just like going to the doctor for a cold or something. it’s the same thing. sort of. but not really. somehow my resolve that it wouldn’t get to me dissolved as i stood there in front of the door. i steeled myself and busted through that door as if i knew what i was doing.

i stood at the desk and a lady stood up to help me. “hi,” i said nonchalantly, “do you offer birth-control here?” very casually, as if it was something that normal people do.

she looked at me for a second as if she couldn’t comprehend what i was saying. and then she thought about it and said, “yes. i have to call a nurse.” so she calls the nurse and the nurse takes me to the examination room. she hands me a cup and tells me to pee in it. i go to the bathroom, piss in the cup, put it in the little turny thing and someone grabs it from the other side. i think that was oen of the most frightening things of the whole experience. knowing that someone on the other side of that wall was waiting for me to piss in a goddamn container so that they could examine it.

i cleaned myself up and took myself back into the examination room. i kept looking into mirrors and reflective surfaces and thinking “this is the face of someone who has premarital sex”. i wonder if i look different than someone who hasn’t had premarital sex. did that one lady think of me any diffrently? did the nurse think of me any differently?

another nurse, different one this time, came in and took my stats and made small talk with me. i wished she wouldn’t make smalltalk. i didn’t care. i just wanted to get my pills and get out of there. she took my vitals finally and left.

then the doctor came in. yeah, wierd, huh? first the lady at the front test, the nurse that took me to the examination room, then the nurse that gave me the urine cup and then the nurse that took my urine sample from the turn thing and then the nurse that took my vitals and then a doctor. way too many people were thinking of my urine samples at that point for my comfort [ha. now it’ll be even worse… oh well]. so the doctor makes me sign this paper and prescribes my medication.

i go over to the pharmacy center. so there’s a chick there who takes my prescription. and there’s the pharmacist who makes my prescription. and then there’s yet ANOTHER doctor that gives me my medication. how many people need to be invovled in this anyhow?

so then i paid for everything and left. the bikeride home is so dark, it relaxed me and matched my mood. i didnt want to think about anything except for riding my bike. it was kind of hard to do, with the bag of medication bouncing in my pocket and all. every time the medicine bounced in my pocket i would think of the look on that first lady’s face. they should train their workers better.

now im sitting here, pills in my pocket and waiting to take them at 8 so that i can take my second one at 8 again. i feel strange. like i’m removed from my body. like the person experiencing all this isn’t me and that i’m just observing my life from afar.

ha ha ha. look at that chick. she had to ride her bike in the dark to get birth control pills.