“Perfect timing,” Lily said, as we clomped toward the bus stop in almost-matching rain boots, and it was. The bus schedule, which I had extricated from inside her tote bag in a marvelously choreographed move, since her arms were full of almost every pair of shoes that she owned, said that the next bus would stop at Smith in four minutes, and we’d get an express trip back to MHC.
It really had been one of those days when everything just worked, clicked, fit together effortlessly. With my coffee just right, and my mascara clump-free, the gentle rain seemed to fall only to give me a good excuse to wear my rubber boots.
It all started with one lucky coincidence: Lily left a bag of shoes in her parent’s car, and they happened to run into Melissa’s parents and passed the shoes off because they were on their way to visit her at Smith that day. Lily asked me to go over with her to pick them up because I knew where the apartment was, and because we hadn’t been to visit Mel since a rugby game early in the fall.
I had been looking forward to spending the day in Northamptonwith Lily all week. Sometimes, as an appointment or event or date, even a friend-date, gets closer, I begin to feel a weight grind down on every part of me, from my shoulders to my eyelids. It’s an imaginary but oppressive pressure. My own uncertainty, my own hesitation, and my own hang-ups combine forces to stir up anxiety that leaves me feeling vulnerable, hopeless and fatigued. I don’t always want to go out there because I don’t want to hit that sudden moment when I urgently crave the security that only my bed can offer. I don’t want to come home second-guessing myself.
Yesterday, something felt different. I stretched out my shoulders and neck and it took a moment to realize that the usual weight was missing. In spite of the weather, the day looked clear and I remembered what lighthearted anticipation felt like.
The thing about Lily and Melissa is that, in one way or another, they have been tied into my life for a long time. Lily and I have only been friends since we’ve been at Mount Holyoke together but, from our first in-person conversation, I’ve felt like we come from the same place, in more ways than one. We’ve lived less than five minutes away from each other for years without ever really even noticing. But it still amazes me how quickly we caught on to each other, the way we get each other’s stories.
Melissa and I, for all of our opposites, have connected since we sat beside each other for a month in the second grade –and then asked the teacher to separate us because, well, we made better friends than neighbors. She sent me a get well card from her cat and her dog when I had the chicken pox and we stuck together during the most critical social moments in middle school: between the bells in a hallway swarm of pre-adolescents. When we ended up at colleges less than thirty minutes away from each other, I couldn’t think of anyone better to have close by, and though we don’t see each other a lot, she has always been there, with an open invitation, an open door or an open bottle, at just the right moment. She can ask, “Em, are you going to be okay if we go to the sex shop?” and it doesn’t sound like an insult. I count on that. I’ve always counted on her.
It was one of those days when everything came together, and when I got home, I craved my bed. But only because I’m a lazy college student and I’d been soothed into a beatifically content Friday afternoon nap.
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