Sunday, April 10, 2011

You, and Everyone You've Ever Known

I'm thinking a lot about the people in my life, the ones who were there a year ago, or ten, and the ones who have come back into it after a long absence, and the ones I know won't. Our lives are so circular. Sometimes it's just time to part ways with people, and places, and, to a certain extent I think that fate takes care of you; when people drift out of your life, new ones come in and spackle up those cracks. Does anything ever really end? I don't think so. I will forever cut sandwiches diagonally because my best friend from elementary school (with whom I lost contact years and years ago) told me it was bad juju to do it down the middle. Giraffes remind me of the first boy I ever fell for. A friend I worked with at Ralph Lauren last summer sent me a sunflower ring in the mail a few weeks ago. She's back home in Mexico now, and it's unlikely we'll cross paths again, but she was a much-appreciated ally, and now I have something to remind me of her. People don't ever really disappear.

A friend pointed out to me the other day that the number of people we "keep" when we leave Vassar will probably be a lot smaller than we think right now, but that those people, however few, will be the ones worth keeping. Isn't that sad, and sweet, and scary? All at the same time.

You know that final scene in Y tu mamá también, when Tenoch and Julio meet for coffee and realize they don't really have anything to say to one another anymore? They've had this epic, life-altering adventure together that only the two of them can understand, and still, a cup of coffee and Luisa's death are the only things holding them together. They never see each other again. I wonder what will hold the people I love here together once "here" doesn't mean what it does now.

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