Hey, stranger.

The year was 2019. It was August. I had a bad haircut and a putrid yellow bruise on the left side of my swollen jaw from an ill-timed wisdom tooth removal. I felt like a gargoyle and looked pretty close to one, but then again, at that time in my life I always felt like I looked disfigured and abnormal compared to other beautiful, young 18 year old girls. If this is my supposed prime, I’m asking for a refund I thought to myself every time I had to shampoo just my bangs over the bathroom sink.

My mom and I pulled into a dusty parking lot at the University of Oregon in Eugene— a shithole that Stockholm Syndromes people into thinking it’s paradise after you experience the spring there. I remember wondering what could possibly be waiting for me in such a small town. After I left, I was addicted to reminiscing on the grimy house parties and frat floors and cracked sidewalks and shitty dining hall food with the fervor of someone who was convinced they’d seen the pearly gates but could never return. Eugene in its 2 year tenure in my memory remains a bright, stupid, hilarious chain of events that I can’t think about too long without missing it terribly.

Anyway, it was August and thus hot as hell. Which, for me and my unfortunate bangs, was almost too much. I was asymmetrically swollen, sweaty, clad in an oversized faded t-shirt and ratty sneakers, and nervous as anyone standing at the precipice of a new beginning could be. It was my freshman orientation.

That 2 day stretch of campus tours and ice breakers and lukewarm pizza contains enough half buried memories that resurface on random weekdays that I’m convinced it must have lasted a week instead of 48 hours. The most important moment, though, was halfway through the first day, when I found myself standing next to a boy in my orientation group with floppy hair and an infectious grin. The leaders had left us to our own devices to get to know each other and I coerced Liam into playing a video game they had put on for us like resigned babysitters, determined to come away with one friend from that day. Within moments we had attached to each other with the desperation of those lost at sea and 20 minutes later, the girl who I’d randomly met and decided to live with, found us in the rec center. There, the 3 of us awkwardly introduced ourselves. I couldn’t help but sneak glances at Alex and try to orient myself with the person I’d be sleeping 5 feet away from for 9 months. So many of my high school friends were going to be joining me in Eugene, Erin included, and yet I was determined to form new friendships with people from different worlds than I. Alex, it seemed, was my first chance. She is, not to mince words, very beautiful and very intimidating. Her hair fell straight, black, completely tidy and she kept her space nearly meticulously clean. I loved her instantly.

We did everything together, the three of us. We brought in friends we met individually and our group grew but when I think of my freshman year, I think of Alex and Liam and I, stumbling along Greek row, singing Linger by The Cranberries. I think of Alex spilling Four Loko in my bed (I was very particular about my bed hygiene) and swearing Liam to secrecy. I think of Alex and I laying in our twin beds, close enough to hold hands, all day on Sundays, filled with an ever present anxiety of what the hell are we supposed to be doing with ourselves?They were the color in between the lines of that first year on my own.

The year is now 2025 and I part my hair down the middle and have not had wisdom teeth for 6 years. I don’t feel like a gargoyle anymore and wouldn’t drink Four Loko if I was on a deserted island and it was ice cold. I will never have bangs again and no longer wear those ratty sneakers and I am pale faced, trembling, at the idea of leaving for New York, even if it’s not permanent. I’m scared because I can still remember the version of myself that Alex and Liam knew but she doesn’t exist anymore. Time has passed and we’ve all grown into different people. I, as I exist right now, might not in 6 years. Sometimes I get off the phone with a friend who doesn’t live near me and want to throw my phone on the floor, rip my hair out of my head, and scream about how unfair it is that there is no promise that we will be together in one place forever. Alex and Liam were the first to teach me this lesson but it has happened over and over again, as my friends and I grow up. It’s the quiet heartbreak of adulthood, I think. You meet people you’ll love forever and yet lose them to life’s frustratingly persistent march forward.

So I am terrified of New York and the thing that it represents— new chapters often mean an end to the one you’re currently on— more than I expected. The fear has made me want to lay catatonic in bed and look at old photos and wail about how I’ll never be back in that moment in time again. The years have passed, the people have grown up, the corner store is now a dispensary. So it goes. Life has thrown me over its shoulder and continued on, not bothered by the people who took a left when I went right and are long gone.

And yet you don’t completely lose them, do you? Sometimes you get lucky and are able to stay in touch long after you’ve shared a city. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes I don’t speak to someone for years and yet I still listen to that one song they sent me or tell people the random fact they once told me or make my pasta the way they taught me. It might be a tragedy that we cannot collect and keep people close to us forever but I wouldn’t change it for anything, in the end. There is something so precious about those years in Eugene, crystallized forever in memory and nostalgia (I know for a fact that I only look back on the dining hall fondly because I’ll never have to eat there again). When I see that Alex has moved to a new city and has a cool job and texts me every so often, I feel grateful that we at least got to spend a few glorious years together.

To all of my friends reading this who I don’t see very often: I think about you always. Should you ever call me in the middle of a random Tuesday just to say hi, I’d answer.

xoxo,

Evie