Anoush Froundjian - How The Other Half Lives

 

It's the summer of 2003. I had just finished my first year at Mount Holyoke College, and I was now beginning a summer job as a box office manager in Sharon, Connecticut. I'd be living in the dorms with everybody who worked there backstage. This dorm, it was a small house, but more like a cabin. When you walked in, the first thing you'd notice was that it smelled like cigarette smoke and that the floors were lined with empty beer bottles, or what they would call empties. [audience laughter] 

 

I'm not really a partier. I never was. I was always an old soul and I was honestly more busier being Armenian than having any time for drinking, drugs or anything else. So, I was 19 and I decided that I wanted to see how the other half lived. So, within my first week of work, I drank for the first time, I smoked pot for the first time and I lost my virginity to the guy who operated the sound booth. [audience laughter] So, now, I had a boyfriend kind of, [audience laughter] and had also earned myself the nickname Tequila. [audience laughter] 

 

But since I didn’t have a big group of friends at the time to get advice from or ask questions to, I was figuring things out on my own. Like, is it normal that my body hurts this much still afterwards, or is it normal that he's not talking to me that much now, as much as he did or is it normal that my throat feels like I have a lump in it all the time? And if so, then how much of their sadness do women typically express, [audience laughter] as opposed to the amount that they keep inside and forget about? [audience cheers and applause] 

 

So, after a while, I just couldn’t take it anymore. And one weekend, when I was visiting my parents, my family at their summer home which is a couple towns away from Sharon, I see my reflection in the porch window and I start to sob. My uncle, who’s sitting a couple feet away in a wicker couch, looks over and says, “Are you all right?” I just ran away and I swung open the porch door and ran down the stairs, down the hill. As I was running down, relatives were running up. I bump shoulders with my dad. My dad and I look at each other, and he looks at me and he goes, “What’s wrong?” And I said, “Oh, nothing.” He looks at me again.

 

Since my dad has this way of just being able to read me really well, he said, “Oh, you had sex?” [audience laughter] I didn’t know what to say, because I wasn’t planning on discussing it with my parents. [audience laughter] But my parents are really cool, but they’re also Armenian. My dad is also from Lebanon, so you never know. [audience laughter] So, I look at him and I go, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Did you use a condom?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Are you okay?” And I said, “Yeah.” And so, he pats me on the shoulder, like in a welcome aboard kind of a way, [audience laughter] and says, “Okay.” I immediately felt better, because now I could stop feeling guilty and mad at myself and just feel sad the normal way. [audience laughter]

 

Later that night, everybody was going home, like, my uncles and aunts all went home and my dad went home. It was just me, my mom, and my little brother, Rafi, who was 10 at the time. My mom somehow found out. She lights a cigarette and she sits me down and she says, “What the hell were you thinking?” My mom has a way of coming on really strong until you realize that it’s just her way of fighting for you. She eventually says, “I just don’t know why you never look out for your heart.” And I say, “Mom, who looks out for their hearts anymore?” And she says, “You know what? I think you should invite him over for dinner. [audience laughter] I think you should invite him over for dinner with me and Rafi. I think it would be fun.” 

 

And I said, “What?” And she said, “Yes. This is who you are. If someone’s going to like you, they have to love all sides of you. Don’t you dare minimize yourself for somebody else.” I don’t know what it was, maybe it was my inner Mount Holyokeness or my inner Armenian, and I looked at her and I said, “Okay.” [audience laughter] So, the next day, I go to the sound booth and I said, “Look, I know we’re not getting married or anything, but my mom wants to know if you want to come over and have dinner with her and my little brother.” And he goes, “Okay.” And I go, “Okay. Oh, God.” [audience laughter] 

 

And then, I’m setting the table for the most unnecessary meal of the century. [audience laughter] My mom is in the other room cooking a very elaborate meal. I'm like, “Mom, why did you roast an entire chicken? He doesn't even love me.” [audience laughter] I look through the window and see his green Subaru drive up. I hear the door slam shut and I’m just like, ready. He walks in, and we sit down and everything’s fine. My mom and him talk about bands they both like. My brother talks to him about instruments he wants to learn how to play. 

 

But something happens, because my brother, who's 10, he's too young to know what's going on, but he knows what's going on and he gives me this look from across the table. It’s like, “Interesting evening, huh?” [audience laughter] I just start laughing. I start laughing and laughing and laughing. It’s noticeable. [audience laughter] I'm just so happy, because I finally have my voice back. I realized that you can have a lot of courage to run away from home and to try new things, but it takes twice the amount of courage to be able to come back. I realized that he wasn’t the special guest that my mother invited to dinner that night. That special guest was me.