Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Happy old friends

My first year of college, I was lucky enough to have a fantastic roommate, Brooke. She is one of those people whom everyone loves--a genuinely cool, interesting, nice person with a magnetic personality. I don't know if we ever would have become friends if we hadn't shared a room, but we got along great. She turned me on to Sex and the City and coppery lipstick. We rearranged the furniture fairly regularly. We had parties where we tried to turn our beds into couches. One weekend I came back to our room at around two a.m. to find a raging game of drunken strip poker taking place. Some guy I had never met before was sitting butt naked on my desk chair. It turned out that she had never met him before either.


I had another great friend my first year of college, Toby. Toby lived one floor above Brooke and me, and I don't remember how we became friends, but I do remember that I was her first friend at college--not because she had trouble making friends but because we went to college in her hometown and so she spent most of her time with her high school friends. Toby is an amazing actor and director and writer. Once when we were walking back from a play she had been in, she was happy and excited and it was snowing and the middle of the night and she just leapt off a porch in a graceful swan dive right into a bank of snow. Brooke and I followed, slightly less gracefully. The three of us were great friends.


The three of us didn't do everything together, but they fill my memories. Before Brooke transferred, the three of us all came back to school after winter break several weeks before classes started again. We spent most of January wandering around in the snow, going to movies, helping Brooke pack, drinking wine and apple cider and amaretto sours, sleeping, going to coffee shops, and generally being depressed at the fact that Brooke was leaving.


Our sophomore year, I got a single room and Brooke and Toby were roommates, two floors up. But Brooke transferred to a new school halfway through the year. As a going-away present, we gave her a framed photo of the three of us, a great photo that unfortunately I do not have scanned. We stayed in touch, but it faded. At this point Brooke and I talk maybe twice a year. Toby and I stayed friends, but we each became more wrapped up in other friends as college proceeded. I think of Brooke and Toby as freshman- and sophomore-year friends. But also, lifetime friends.


20 comments:

  1. I wish I could see the photos.

    I think we all have friends like that, maybe we don't talk so much anymore, but yes, lifetime friends.

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  2. I don't talk at all anymore with the girl I was roommates with pretty much all four years. I thought she would be a lifetime friend, but it didn't work out that way. Anyway, the swan diving sounds so fun! And it is cool to still have those friends, even if you aren't as close any more.

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  3. I can't see the photos either, boo.

    A naked butt on your chair. Oh dear. I think that would ruin it for me for life.

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  4. I see them now, YAY! You all sort of look like sisters.

    Where did you go to college? Have you covered this?

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  5. Tessie--First of all, I made sure to swap that chair out with someone else's as soon as I get a chance to do it unseen. Yes, I'm unethical. Also, I went to Smith College in Massachusetts. I've mentioned that in passing before but only briefly. Maybe I'll talk more about it next Tuesday.

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  6. Love those college pictures. I can almost smell the stale beer and over-heated dorm rooms.

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  7. aww isn't college great? my college career is ending in a mere 10 days and i can't believe all the fabulous people i've met. the first girl i met- kaylyn- was my first 'friend'. we met the first day of orientation. we still talk if we pass each other on campus, but thats about it.

    yay for good memories! :)

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  8. Am I the only person who actually misses dorm life? It was soooo very easy, and fun and sometimes having to trudge down the hall in flip flops and a basket of shower stuff is better than having to clean your own bathroom.

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  9. Freshman year dorm friends are the best. I don't think I would have become friends with my next door neighbor in the dorms had we not been paired together either. But she was a bridesmaid in my wedding and we travelled Europe together after college.

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  10. What a great story! I'm glad you had such a positive experience in college!

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  11. my college roommate was that way too! faaaantastic (and like banana, i was in her wedding) but i'm pretty sure our paths wouldn't have crossed otherwise.

    one of the things i miss most about college is how easy it is to make friends with so many people who you probably never would have met in other circumstances.

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  12. I was just this past week thinking about friendships, and how they ebb and flow and how it's hard, all those goodbyes without a proper goodbye.

    This inspired me to wrap up the post I started based on those thoughts.

    Also, I have always loved the name Brooke.

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  13. A random person's naked butt where your clothed one sat? Yuck.

    My freshman year roommate was BORING. She played Snood ALL DAY and watched the Little Mermaid and she never left the room. Or talked. Ever. And her boyfriend was 15 and not allowed to come visit her. I did meet a guy who lived downstairs that I became super close with and I still talk to at least once a week, and another girl from my classes who I partied with and eventually roomed with the next year. I talk to her regularly too.

    I kind of wish I had a big group of friends that I still talk to from college, but I just have those two.

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  14. i love having friends like that too. they're the best :)

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  15. My freshman roommate and I didn't stay super close for the rest of college / post-college, either, but I see her every couple years and we just pick right up where we left off! I think there is something about someone who you were in such close contact with during such a pivotal moment in growing up, it's such a powerful bond.

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  16. ohhh once again i SO IDENTIFY with this post, in my first year there was a tight knit group of 6 of us. 3 pairs of roomies. and though i hardly talk to some of them now, its like when we DO get together in a room its like we're back in rez! totally the freshman groove that just kicks back in!

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  17. I have a few friends like that too. We are life long friends, we just don't talk often. But I will always consider them friends.

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  18. old friends are the best. out of my 5 roommates throughout college we are all still very close, and can pick up right where we left off. its so nice :)

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  19. I love this. Now I want to write a post about my freshman year and the awesome friends i made :-)

    maybe this weekend

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