She arrived with the intention of leaving some notes for me to peruse for school, but left after giving so much more.
Tonight after a babysitting job, my friend Whitney drove to my house in her trademark green Volvo. Her agreeable mother was allowing her to share some notes with me. After ushering her in I convinced her that yes, she was hungry and yes, she would raid my refrigerator for food. We scavenged and quickly constructed a ham and cheese sandwich accompanied with sliced apple and pineapple-banana-orange juice—a dinner of champions no doubt. Naturally we collapsed into chairs at my kitchen table and surprisingly did not review our academic victories and defeats of the day at all, which is quite an accomplishment.
Until this year there had been nothing seemingly remarkable about out friendship, though one evening this past autumn it completely changed. I was leading her to the door as she was saying goodbye during a get-together with close friends, but instead of seeing her out we went to my room and began talking a million miles a minute. This past summer each of us endured life changing experiences: she on a mission trip to Guatemala and I serving at a Young Life camp in the Adirondack Mountains. Both of us had left everything we’d known to follow our faith to far-away destinations, and as a result returned as much stronger individuals. For high school students, being away for extended periods of time in the summer can be social suicide. What Whit and I realized is that we are big fish in a small pond. We’d return to those at home who could never comprehend why we had chosen to serve instead of enjoy a traditional summer filled with lazy days of sleeping in, Dave Matthews Band concerts and daily escapades to the pool. This connection we shared during that one night at my house has developed to become one of the most constant aspects of my life as a senior. Throughout this year, we find the majority of the time we spend together to be weekday nights when more often than not we are stressing about King Henry assignments* or other comparable matters which will be obsolete in a matter of months. When I think about the first semester, I can mark each significant event by an evening when we were conversing in sweatpants and possibly trying to finish homework. These conversations occurred during such milestones as the night after her last cross country meet or the anxious evening before I found out about admittance to my ideal university.
Tonight when we finally finished solving the world’s problems, not to mention each others’, it was nearly 12:30 a.m. I waited until she was safely in her car before turning off the lights and heading to my bedroom, though was interrupted as Whit called my cell phone and said “Hey, I never even gave you those notes!” This was perfectly fine.
*Shout out to Mr. T.F. of AP English 12: I hope you are taking note of my close regulation of the Oxford comma, please and thank you.
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