Intimacy

Sent from the hair salon

what we’re biting

grey: Graduation season is looming, and I’ve been saying a lot of goodbyes. It doesn’t feel real to me, thinking about close friends moving across the world, rationing our time to the occasional weekend trip or FaceTime call. Keeping in touch long-distance has never been my strong suit. I’m trying to get better, but even so, I know these relationships won’t be the same and that warrants some mourning. I guess no relationship ever stays the same, but is always in flux (impermanent).

There are also people who I didn’t get to say goodbye to. I’m thinking about how important the non-best-friend is— the kind of people you always wave to, who you chat with in line for coffee, those who you’ll text happy birthday but not buy a gift for, the friends of friends. That circle is so important to make a place feel like home. And those are the relationships at most risk to be carved down to an exchange of Instagram likes.

When I first came to Yale, I kept recognizing strangers, thinking they were someone I knew from home. I had been in contact with family and close friends from high school, but I missed the people whose numbers I hadn’t saved, who I never said goodbye to. I wonder if I was missing those people or a small town sense of comfort. I think it was some of both.