The Disco

Friday night was the first night for me to stay in the dormitory on campus with all the other American students, along with our new German friends. To celebrate the end of our first week at Eringerfeld, we all made plans to go to the disco for dancing and fun.

Like most any other sixteen year old girl, I obsessed over what to wear, how to do my hair and whether or not I looked okay. I had always had my own sense of fashion and didn't really care if what I wore was the latest style. I preferred to have my own style. But the German girls knew how to dress. They weren't afraid to dress punk if that's what they wanted. They weren't afraid to wear bright colors if that's what they wanted. They weren't afraid to wear clothes that made them stand out from the crowd. I loved the diversity and the variety and wished it was like that in America. As a teen in America, if you didn't look like a clone of everyone else, then you weren't accepted. I knew that and had experienced it a million times over. I loved that the girls in Germany wore whatever they damn well pleased and life went on. Even though, in retrospect, I wasn't all that different with my feathered hair, my bright-colored baggie pants and tank tops, I felt more accepted in Germany, by the German teens, then I ever had in my homeland.

By the time we finished dinner in the dining hall, got dressed and did our hair, and finally headed over to the disco it was dark. The night sky was pitch black and it was impossible to see as we walked the sidewalk from the dormitory to the disco. Not knowing where I was going, I followed the sounds of the music as they grew louder and hoped I was still walking with the right crowd.

As the doors to the disco burst open, the flashing disco lights pierced the darkness and beckoned us in. There were tables and chairs scattered around the room and a dance floor in the middle. Raised above the dance floor, to my left, the DJ played music and got the crowd going. He was a cute German boy I'd seen in English class...the only class that made any sense to me.

The music played on and we danced and laughed until our feet were tired and our heads were sore. Though it was dark in the disco and hard to see, I gazed around my surroundings as much as I could, not wanting to ever forget the experience, that night or the moment. We waved goodbye to the DJ and the others at the disco and got ready to head back out into the night. For a split-second, before we left, everything slowed down similar to the way it does in the movies. Back at home I'd never felt accepted...not at home and certainly not at school. I never felt there was a place for me. As my friends and I walked out of the disco that night, into the warm August air, I realized I felt at  home. Some 5000 miles away from the place where I lived, I finally felt at home.