old friends
It’s been almost a year now since the world stopped in its tracks. Those feelings I had back then — at times of being sun-drenched with some old friends on Janss, of catching up on sleep in the back row of BH 3400, of (politely) asking the Uber driver to pull over because someone had one too many — were shoved onto the back burner as we all tried to figure this out.
What comes now?
Over the next few months, that question hid in the depths of my brain, slowly getting bigger as I moved home, “graduated” online, and started adulting. None of it ever resurfaced until a few weeks ago, as I sat through yet another work meeting — my mind and MacBook both muted.
It’s been hard, to say the least. I haven’t found the time to sit down and fully process everything. Part of me pushes off the amassing notifications on my phone in the hopes that tomorrow will be “the day” — the day that I wake up from all this, and it’s still the beginning of spring quarter. Coachella hasn’t happened yet. Creative Labs’ senior banquet is still going to happen.
I can reply to all of your messages with “omw” or “wya”, stuffing the conversation into my backpack for when I unexpectedly run into you on Gayley.
I think I’m speaking for everyone of the Class of 2020 when I say that I miss it. The lack of any closure — the broken promises of “see you laters”, the laughing and crying associated with wrapping up the four most transformative years of our lives — has manifested in my heart as a memory of something that never happened. I’ve mentally sunken into this gap, making half-assed attempts everyday at adapting to being a human in quarantine.
For someone who introspects a lot, I was shocked to find myself laying on my couch most days, mindlessly scrolling through YouTube. Thirty-two tabs open, with each looking at anything from music production to analog photography. All of this sounds like me, but it didn’t feel like it.
Shit, it’s already 8?
And just like that, another day is over.
None of it excited me anymore. A fresh day didn’t mean endless possibilities like it used to — at best, it was an exercise. One that never changed from the usual routine of work, cook, eat, and sleep.
It wasn’t until one night when I was staring at the backlog of Facebook and Instagram messages did I realize what I was missing. After replying to everyone, I was reminded of our community. This place that we’ve built out of a love for creativity and one another. The place I called home for the better half of my college days.
As I’m writing this, I’m thinking of many of my old friends. I’ll admit that I haven’t been the most social person, but I hope that you are well and that post-college is everything you thought it would be.
Lately, I’ve been finding myself holding onto “the day” — the one when we’re all comfortably knocking back beers around a table again. The one where everyone looks subtly different, yet the same all at once. The one where we laugh and tease one another for stupid college memories, and we’ll try to relive them — only to realize how old we’ve become.
