My roommate is taking our friends home. They came over for a short hour after a birthday dinner to debrief the events of the evening before — it felt especially time sensitive. My eyes were starting to get teary, as they often do when I’ve had a long day and am eager to finally get into bed, and our words of advice and affirmation to one another were still fierce and true, but our bodies had slowed and our voices lulled. “Do you want to come?” my roommate asks me.
My answer is yes. Another other time, last semester even, my answer would have been no. My hair needs to be washed, I have work early the next morning, and I must scroll on my phone for a minimum of 30 minutes before bed. But by the pending encroachment of summer and the promised warmth in a couple months time, we will all have graduated, unsure of when the next time we’ll all share time like this together again.
It’s an unnecessary journey to take. My bedtime is now prolonged simply because I wish to come along for the ride, but when will I have another chance to just come along for the ride? My biggest contribution will likely be requesting a song to add to the queue (maybe four songs, max, will play the entirety of the drive), but still our time to laugh and make plans for tomorrow will be all the much longer.
I know this isn’t just something I’m doing, prolonging the inevitable end of our collective college experience, because I can see my friends doing it too.
Over spring break, some girls and I spent a short, but sweet, weekend in Denver. It was the first year that my entire friend group didn’t travel somewhere together, squashing into one bedroom and sleeping just mere feet apart. I was admittedly particularly blue about this fact — it’s one of my favorite memories, our joy felt tangible. It was a constant, and then we get to do it all again tomorrow…
It then meant a little bit more to me that over that weekend, some of those same girls from that treasured trip made the journey down to the city just for dinner. If you’ve ever made the trip from Boulder to Denver via bus, you know it’s one that requires, at the very least, something worthwhile. I’m not too sure that, on a whim, I would make the outing just for dinner.
The music ended up being too loud, there was confusion over the check, and a couple precarious falls on cherished garments, but we were together. And really, how can we not call time together, even if only a short period, time wasted or not, worthwhile?
It is maybe those kinds of things that I will miss the most. Moving forward, every time we’re all together again will be something big we all know we have to make last, a reunion after who knows how long. When will we all share another less-than-ideal dinner together? That I’m not quite sure of.
So, at the moment, I’m looking for every seemingly-mundane thing I can do if it means I get to spend a few more minutes with someone I love. Yes to car rides home. Yes to joint trips to the grocery store. Yes to sitting in silence, just being together.
My graduation photos are next weekend, my dress has been dropped off for minor, but necessary alterations, and my gown is waiting to be picked up. I’ve acquired my stoles, worried too much about what the weather will be like, contemplated a nail design, and have continued the search for the perfect heels. Graduation is on my doorstep and I’m not sure I want to open the door.
But I won’t be doing it alone.