grieving sophomore spring
how lucky i am to have had such a good thing
We’re on a sunshine streak over here these days, and old scars lost to winter have started to reveal themselves again in the ways they still cannot change. The rest of the skin has darkened — proof it is still living, willing to drink in the sunlight beaming down on Philadelphia — while the shiny remains of old Maryland exit wounds stay pale and afraid. It’s a strange feeling, being back in Maryland now.
Sometimes, I still think awful things. I drive through this hometown archipelago of monuments to feeling — the only thing I still remember about high school, how it made me feel — and I get this tug in my chest, a longing to go back. The piece of me that carries bad habits like scars, that still can’t block phone numbers or stop writing about it, any of it, lurches home. I don’t really know where closure comes from. It hasn’t come. That isn’t to say I’m still stuck on everything, just some things, some times. It was awful, but it sure felt good every now and then. The best a high schooler ever could’ve felt.
But old friends — ex-friends, actually — people I grew to dislike so much since leaving this small town because I’d once liked them so much while I was knee-deep in it, have started reaching out to me again. I want to forgive them, or maybe I want them to forgive me. It has been such a long time since we fought and forgot to make up. I am so tired of remembering how to be angry, cutting myself open again and again each time. When it comes to most ordinary harms, I’ve realized, we don’t get to choose whether we heal or not. The body just keeps trying to repair itself so we can go on living, and that’s a beautiful thing, more beautiful than any open wound.
I haven’t had time to sit down and write for a while, which is evidence of an abundance — practically, an excess — of good things. Sophomore spring was very good to me. What a privilege it was to be busy! What a privilege to be invited, to be relied on, to have homework, to eat together, to have responsibilities, to be trusted, to make other people laugh, to share, to give gifts, to hug tightly, to get angry, to forgive, to have to leave, to miss— to miss. What a privilege it is to grieve a good thing. I sit at my high school desk now and feel all kinds of bittersweet, finally having realized the best version of sadness.
Sometimes, I thought I wasn’t doing enough, and still, sometimes, I thought I couldn’t possibly do it all. Even scurrying between engagements, I used to look at my friends and feel that they were all much more interesting than me. Then I made more friends who thought my old friends weren’t interesting at all, and I realized there is no hierarchy of involvements, and there never has been. Every odd dish has a place in the cupboard. I want to go back in time and tell my eighteen- and seventeen- and sixteen-year-old self, The world is so wide and full of people who are so ready to love you. I’d only found a few back then. I’m finding more of them now. I’ll keep finding them for the rest of my life, I suspect, as will you. How lucky are we?
I made senior friends just to lose them and freshman friends who will outstay me, and I realized just how much I would miss my roommates when I was standing in the empty living room of 2314 for the last time, knowing we would never get this back ever again. There will be no more late-night shower monopolies or homemade Korean food left on the stove for anyone to eat, no weekly text in Wet and Gushy (formerly Stone Cold, formerly 3 Koreans and a Chinese, formerly Roomies!) that we’re out of eggs, no family-size bag of Snyder’s Buffalo Wing pretzels destroyed in one sitting between four girls who were all once afraid of eating. The door perpetually left bolted open for visits from one— no, two— no, three boyfriends is not ours anymore.
It’s okay. There’s beauty in moving forward. Sometime in April or maybe early May, I asked Devon which semester of college has been his favorite so far. He said, This one. They just keep getting better. He’s absolutely right. In the grand scheme of things, it only gets better.