simpsoka

It's the second semester of my freshman year of college, first week of classes. I'm leaving class, walking side by side with a girl I've just met. I'm intrigued by her intelligence, her independence, and the spark that ignites when two people just get each other.

Fast forward a year and a half. It's the end of my second semester of sophomore year. School is about to start, and this same friend and I are headed to our respective homes for the summer, me to Vancouver and she to Alaska. Inspired by Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (yes, really), she suggests that instead of sharing pants we mail journals back and forth all summer. This remains on of my favorite highlights of our friendship to this day.

Another year and a half goes by and we are roommates living in three-quarters of a garage that's been converted into a small house. There are Saturday morning breakfasts, movie nights, road trips, quote boards, and memories that have faded into the fabric of friendship only remembered in the familiarity that exists between us.

After only six months of being roommates, she moves. Then she moves again, and I move where she is. We spend a summer hiking, biking and laughing our way through Skagway, Alaska and its surrounding wonders. And then summer is over.

Real life sets in. She moves. I move. I visit. She moves. I move. I move. She moves. I move. She moves. I move. She moves. And all of a sudden it's been several years since we've seen each other. How does life move so quickly? It doesn't feel like years because we talk every week. But when I think about the last time I SAW her laugh, not just imagined it as she tells me she's laughing over gchat, the time becomes evident.

On Friday the wait will be over. It will no longer be years since we've seen each other, and I cannot wait.