Twelve years ago tonight, I couldn't sleep. I was preparing to drive 500 miles with the whole fam, to where I knew no one except Tim, my really Southern recruiter. I was about to move in with Edie, the randomly selected roommate I had already tried to trade. I was about to start my life.
That first night, driving to and through the tiny town, I lamented that no one would be like me. The next day my dad pointed at a girl's meticulously labled boxes and mentioned my tupperware container marked "Nail Polish." "I think you might not be the only one...like you," he said. I was not convinced.
Eleven years and fifty-one weeks ago, I met some of the best friends of my life, I just didn't know it yet. I still haven't figured out how to make friends like I did then.
And this matters because tonight, I am sitting beside my little sister who leaves for her freshman year of college in the morning. We are up too late, having discussed what she should wear while moving in, counseling her that she will not have enough closet space for all the clothes she has chosen to pack, rolling clothes to fit more into any vessel we could find, and having traveled to Walgreens in our jammies for prints to put in her twenty-eight frames, twenty-seven of which she will keep and one that she will give to my three and a half year old who adores her. When I left, twelve years ago, Sarah was six and I was sad to leave her, scared of the change, excited for the fresh start.
I am scared, sad and excited all over again, and hoping the next fifteen years go a lot slower than the last twelve.
That first night, driving to and through the tiny town, I lamented that no one would be like me. The next day my dad pointed at a girl's meticulously labled boxes and mentioned my tupperware container marked "Nail Polish." "I think you might not be the only one...like you," he said. I was not convinced.
Eleven years and fifty-one weeks ago, I met some of the best friends of my life, I just didn't know it yet. I still haven't figured out how to make friends like I did then.
And this matters because tonight, I am sitting beside my little sister who leaves for her freshman year of college in the morning. We are up too late, having discussed what she should wear while moving in, counseling her that she will not have enough closet space for all the clothes she has chosen to pack, rolling clothes to fit more into any vessel we could find, and having traveled to Walgreens in our jammies for prints to put in her twenty-eight frames, twenty-seven of which she will keep and one that she will give to my three and a half year old who adores her. When I left, twelve years ago, Sarah was six and I was sad to leave her, scared of the change, excited for the fresh start.
I am scared, sad and excited all over again, and hoping the next fifteen years go a lot slower than the last twelve.
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