Reflections Part II - The Dorm

Yesterday morning, I was sitting in my bed reading the news when one of the cleaning women opened the door and looked around.
“When do you leave? And what is all this mess?!?”
I hadn’t realized that where I put my clothes (in this instance, on my former roommates’ now-vacated beds) was any of her concern, but that shows how much I know.
“Umm sorry….I’m leaving on Saturday and am in the middle of packing.”
“Well, clean this up. Two new girls are coming and I need somewhere to put their sheets.”

And thus ends my long relationship with the obshezhitiye (общежитие). Let me explain: when I first arrived here at the end of January, I discovered that I was not only living in the same building as I had when I was 9, but on a floor I had lived on previously. As I remarked to my brother, yes, it was weird living here again. Especially when I came home drunk. I somehow felt that the innocence of my childhood memories had been tainted by all the «grown up» things I did here now: drinking, cooking for myself, getting yelled at (rather than adored) by babushki….

But now those memories of my 9-year old self shouting to my brother to «HOLD ON» while, in our shared room (now Tess and Radhika's room), I tried deodorant for the first time; of watching spokoini nochi/спокойной ночи (good night) before bedtime in the room I shared with Elise and Grace; of painting my nails in that very room with a Dartmouth student I had especially looked up to — those memories now dim in comparison to my new memories.

I remember our first night in the dorm, when my roommates and I made big plans to set up our room and cook our first meal together after, of course, a quick nap. That nap turned into an 11-hour coma-like sleep. We soon discovered that pretending to nap was the best way to avoid people we didn't want to talk to, so for the first couple of weeks it seemed that all we did was sleep. We then so adjusted to living together that if one of us decided to take a nap, another person would get sleepy and follow suit, while the third tried to hold out as long as possible but finally gave into the temptation.

I had worried that living alone for a week would taint these memories as they had tainted my earlier ones. Instead, while those 4 months living with Grace and Elise feel more like a dream than reality — detailed, life-life, yet upon consideration not quite believable — it would be natural for me to come home after work to find them waiting, ready to tell me the latest Suite Drama.

All the same, I am ready to leave the общежитие: the Bard-Smolny chapter of my life has ended, while the American living in St. Petersburg one continues. I am ready to leave behind those memories, ready to put them in a distant corner of my mind and to focus on what's next.

So, Jay, to answer your question more fully: yes, it's weird being back in the dorm. But it's somehow fitting. This has been the site of significant periods in my life; it is where I have grown up, first as a child too young to remember, then as a 9-year old, and finally at 21.