Well, I guess the people have spoken and I’m listening. You all wanted more stories from my younger days so here is one of my personal favourites. This particular story comes from my late teens, when I was a sheepish nineteen-year-old freshman taking my first steps into adulthood at Rice in Texas (still got my blue and grays, go Owls). Houston was my home city and I was proud to be the first man in my family to go college – my father was a coal miner and my mother stayed at home to look after me and my three brothers. For those that asked about me last time I posted – I’m light-skinned African American (compared to my dad who is blacker than night) 6’4 and built big like my father.
Author: Stopitmerideth
Stories from my youth – my young Swedish university flatmate [MF]
Remembering back on my year-long exchange in Sweden, it was one of the most transformative times of my young adult life. I was 27 at the time, facing down the barrel of 30 with the hopes of a career back home in the states in business analytics once I finished my masters degree at Lund University. I would be a son my mother could be proud of I thought.
I was a poor masters student, so I lived in student accommodation and got by with shopping at farmers markets and eating cheap. I couldn’t afford an apartment on my own, instead opting for the next best choice – a room to myself with a shared kitchen and bathroom with one other person. My first housemate was a nightmare, a lazy Swedish guy that never cleaned up after himself and made no effort to socialise with me in any way. To say I was releived when he moved out is an understatement. I didn’t have to wait very long for my new housemate to move in. I can still remember the first day we met, as she stood in the kitchen directing the moving company men around with all her belongings being brought into her bedroom. She was young, nearly ten years my junior at only 19 years old. She was a native Swede, but didn’t have the stereotypical blonde hair and blue eyes. She was about 5″5 with a gymnasts body, dark brown hair and matching eyes. She caught my attention immediately.