When I left the hospital after my brain injury, I planned on going back to live with my old roommate. We’d been friends my whole life and always got along quite well. I knew what to expect with him. There were rarely any surprises. But when I went home, I learned he'd moved out and some guy I’d never met was living there instead.
At first, I wasn’t nice to my new roommate. I told him I didn’t think we’d ever be friends. I asked him to just try and stay away from me, that I really had no interest in getting to know him better. I told him to go ahead and start looking for a new place, a place he could move to when my old roommate came home - something I knew could be happening anytime soon. But I finally realized he wasn’t actually coming back. He had really left for good.
It was only after accepting this that I actually started giving my new roommate a chance. I figured I should probably try to get to know him a little better. And what I’ve learned so far is he’s a whole lot different than my old one. He has a lot of annoying little quirks that are taking some getting used to. He sleeps a lot, doesn’t like loud noises, is always reading something, asks a lot of questions that are often times the same ones he just asked me, always wants to talk about serious stuff, is a little high strung at times, has a hard time relaxing, can’t pay attention for any length of time, and gets so easily fixated and annoyed by what seem like such trivial matters.
However, despite all these, I‘m actually getting used to living with him. And there are even some days I like having him around. You should stop by and meet him someday soon - maybe you’ll like him too!
