Summer 2018: Neighborhood News Bureau class, Day 1: It’s summer, I really don’t want to be going to class. I can’t believe I’m here instead of at some beach on the coast of Europe, ugh.
I walk in, not only late, but with just my laptop and a pineapple coolatta in my hands. I left home without even my backpack or my glasses; I’m a disheveled mess. I grab a seat on the side of the room beside a window, while everyone else is at a table. At this point, I’m just trying to call as little attention to myself as possible.
A girl at the table behind me with perfectly groomed hair, flawlessly painted nails and an impeccable cat eye-obviously a girl with her life put together-raises her hand to ask something and references her wine blog. I roll my eyes,and think to myself,this is going to be a looong semester.
Later in the class we get put into groups. Although, I’m sure by this point of my ranting, I’ve made it obvious where this is going, but we land in the same group. Just my luck.
There was one other person in our group and the three of us got to talking. We all had the same goal:to get through this class. She said something I never expected to hear from someone who seemed so polished, and it made me chuckle. Okay, maybe this won’t be so bad.
Another day, she mentioned that she thought she was really funny, but no one else did. I genuinely empathize with that. But also, she actually is funny. So we created this unsaid pact to laugh at each others’ jokes, since no one else would.
Today: we’re both showing up 35 minutes late to class and turning assignments in 16 weeks after the due date. I guess we had more in common than I thought.
As I write this, I’m graduating in exactly 10 days. I have gone through my entire undergraduate experience without making any friends in school. It’s much harder than I expected. I had one friend that I met at church from about eight years prior to starting university. She ended up being at the same school as me, so it worked out well, but she graduated just a week before this semester started. That was hard on me, because at this point it felt like I had no friends, until I met Caroline.
Since that class when we met, we’ve taking mostly all of the same classes and I can’t imagine what it would have been like to come to class everyday and not see a welcoming face—accompanied by an eyeroll at whatever indecent task we had for the day. Truly blessed. Truly grateful. Thank you.