I Lived

Today, I toured Hamilton College, because my brother had to be there for an interview so he, my dad and I drove nine hours round trip to go. It was fun, I slept all the way there in the morning stretched out in the backseat, cocooned in my sleeping bag and three pillows (at this point I travel with an entourage of pillows).  I watched Knocked Up on the way back and made far too many dirty jokes with my favorite boys in the world, listened to too much hard rock, had exactly one half of a huge burger and fries, three cups of coffee, and one great experience, one peaceful and no drama experience. It was nice.

But I also fell in love with Hamilton, one of the only colleges I've ever been to besides St. Mikes and UVM, and I mean Harvard, but I was ten so I don't really remember it.  It was beautiful, even in the end of January when everything is tinged with dirty snow and a sheen of frost.  It was so beautiful and the tour guide was so nice and so cool and so similar to me and I just saw myself on that campus, like I could really picture it.  Granted, I haven't toured any others, so I'm not going to declare that I definitively want to go there right now, because I'd like to keep my options open.

But this girl was talking about all her friends and how she always feels surrounded by them, and while the classes and teachers and structure and food and just everything is really great there, its the friends that make the experience, because it is such a community.  She was going to Madrid for a semester next fall, and when we asked why she wasn't just going for the whole year, she looked at us as if we were crazy and then said without any hesitation, "I wouldn't ever want to be away from here for that long." Then she smiled and looked right at me and said, "There are some things you just know in life. The moment I drove onto campus for my tour, I knew. I knew this was the place, and hey, I was right! But if I've ever felt that it wasn't the place for me, because, you know, we all have those moments, my friends, the people I love, have reminded me that it certainly is." And she kept smiling at me. I felt so alone in that moment that I almost reached out to grab my dad's hand, something I haven't done in so many years I can't even remember the last time I did it.

But I felt like I'd had the wind knocked out of me because I realized something-my friends are leaving this year.  I mean, not all of them, but like a lot of them.  And I know I said I've been worrying about it because, hello, its me, but this was the first time the realization truly and really hit me, and I wanted to open up a hole in the ground and just crawl into it and just not come out until my life was over, when I'd go into a different hole in the ground.  

I mean I don't know where to start. What am I going to do without Ellie's louder than life presence (and for that matter her jokes, even the dead baby ones), or Eklutna's mostly sunny and just plain loving and fun attitude?  What will I do without Maggie's kind smile or Alexa's infectious energy? Who am I going to go to on a friday night and watch play GTA or beat lego batman with if Gabe isn't here? Who will I have ridiculous conversations about beer funnels if Geoff is gone, who will I fight with then?  Who will I talk to in the library if the familiar cluster of senior faces aren't there? The faces who don't mind that I'm a junior, and who want to hear what I have to say? What about when Liezl is gone, who will I have to have girls weekends, disney marathons with, complain to, whose smile will I look forward to seeing? Who will be my favorite sarcastic persona and all around perfect person when Lexi is gone? And Sammi. When she is gone, I honestly don't know what I am going to do. I think she and Kara are my oldest and longest GMVS friends.  There are those people who you meet along the way, and then there are those who have made you into the person you are. Sammi is the latter. She has always, always always always been there for me, whether it was with oreos or late night assurances that life is worth it, or paying for literally every single coffee roasters trip or showing me what it is to truly love something in this life so much it hurts. What am I possibly going to do without her, without any of these damn people? Who will I even be?

All I can say is thank god for Christine and basically just her presence that makes me feel so much better and who doesn't even know how much I appreciate that she doesn't let me bullshit her like ever. My sort of new friend Becca and her promises to spray me with a "Positive" spray bottle and who rages all night.  Kara and all the laughs we've ever had, and no doubt the many more we have to come, Kara and her quiet but extremely steady personality who has always, in a sense, protected me.  And everybody else I love, but this post is getting kind of really sentimental and nostalgic and I feel a bit like I am about to bawl my eyes, so I'm going to stop naming all the beautiful and truly wonderful things every single person I've ever loved on this whole goddamn planet has ever done to me, for me.

And I'm always going to remember these things because these aren't the kind of people you forget, these are the people you invite to your wedding, these are the people you think about fifty years later and still smile over.  These are the people that have saved your life from being pure misery and these are the people you would die for, the people you love so damn much it hurts.  The people who've taught you how to love that much.

I am really going to miss you goons.

"you fall in love
And it hurts so bad
The only way you can know
Is you give it all you have"


"I’ll put your poison in my veins, they say the best love is insane"