Kaye

I enjoy both the blessing and curse of having the coolest roommate ever. On one hand, the full face makeup looks they give me are works of art that bring compliments in every social situation. On the other, I feel so simple when I am around them. Like they are a well traveled and skilled megalodon with so many interests and passions while I am a baby nurse shark, naively roaming the same spot of

the ocean floor. Kaye, a self described maximalist, has filled every corner of their room expressing exactly what it is that makes them so unique. Sometimes when Kaye isn’t home and they leave their door open I go in and explore. I stomp on the ground to see if it sounds the same as when I stomp on the ground in my room and brush my hands over the top of their desk chair. Looking over their diverse memorabilia but still fluid design scheme, I find myself wondering how their taste has evolved, and what they are trying to achieve in this space. I also wonder, what am I doing here? And no, not because its 12:46 on a Monday and Kaye’s in class and has no idea I’m sitting on their bed.

Kaye and I are maybe the most dissimilar of the roommates (though still, relatively, pretty similar). Where they love to read horror books, I have recently devoted myself to Ann Patchett. They believe that things like meditation and going to the club are a waste of time, where I believe that social media and doing engineering homework are a waste of time. But in their room, I feel so surrounded by their own impression of themselves, so far from my own impression of myself, that I have no criticisms. Their signals drown out all of the noise that my ego tries to make.