It’s the 2am conversations that range from the legitimacy of aliens to politics while we lay on the floor of our tiny apartment, fully comfortable with each other, that make me think I’ve met you before. If not in this lifetime, then most definitely in a past one.
Maybe we were flappers in the 1920’s, making eyes at the boys across the bar and giggling about who we should lure over first.
Maybe we were nurses during the Civil War, frantically teaching each other how to properly bandage a wounded soldier.
Or maybe we were two nobodies, swinging by our lonesomes at a school playground while the other kids played tag.
Whatever we were, it led us to become what we are now: best friends.
It was a gloomy Monday as the clouds up above blocked any sunlight from reaching us. The pavement was a dark gray, glistening with fresh rain water. The amount of cars on the road were sparse as we drove into town. To most, days like this would be considered mundane. To us, days like this meant we got to create our own sunshine.
We turned up the music in the car though I’m not quite sure why when all we do is talk over it. We sang along, but only briefly, before we started our daily routine of mocking each other followed by bursts of laughter loud enough for cars in our vicinity to hear. To anyone else, our humor wasn’t even worth cracking a smile over. To us, our butts remained seated on the throne reserved only for the funniest humans alive.
The line for the drive thru at our go-to coffee spot (Dunkin’ Donuts, for those curious) when we arrived was empty. Despite that, we took our time getting through it as we were busy complaining to each other about midterms. I got a whopping 65% in one of my classes (my fault for the lack of studying I did) and she got around the same score. Disappointed, but not surprised. To others, our continuous rants about school would be a burden to listen to if not a major annoyance. To us, venting was a way of coping and a form of comfort to know we weren’t isolated in our thoughts.
Our return to the apartment building was announced, as always, because I’m sure our neighbors could hear our voices from down the hall. We crawled into our separate beds, tucked our bodies under comforters twice our size, and passed out. Our favorite activity is taking random naps throughout the day even with an immense amount of caffeine in our systems. To some, sleeping is a waste of time when hanging with a friend. To us, our comfortability level with each other meant nothing was off the table.
When you meet someone, a relationship either progresses or diminishes as time goes on. When you meet someone that you instantly click with—no awkward stage, no drama, no uncertainties—it feels as though your soul and theirs have been friends long before you two were even born.
It’s a connection that’s rare, often unexpected, and always unexplainable.
A connection that allows a friendship with an unbreakable bond between two people to be born.
It’s those types of people you gravitate towards and choose to stick around because they make even the dullest moments in life more colorful.
It’s the people that understand you when you’re still trying to make sense of yourself. It’s the people that hear your inner cries even when a smile is plastered on your face for the public. It’s the people that make the parking lot of a Walmart at 10pm feel like home, because home is a feeling you get when you’re around the ones you love most, no matter where you’re located.
I like to believe those people were my people in a past life. The ones my soul has met before and cherished so deeply that we managed to find each other again.
As for the next lifetime to come, I know I’ll bump into them there too.
I’ll shake their hand, maybe go in for a hug. We’ll share a lighthearted conversation that came so naturally that I’ll have no choice but to say, “I think I’ve met you before.”