Thomas Jefferson
The quote of the week (above) is one of my old favorites. Seniors at St. Catherine's (my high school) each pick a quote to go alongside their senior picture in the yearbook. This quote was the one I chose. Jefferson was one of my childhood heroes (and yes there are better heroes I could have picked, but I didn't), and I just loved everything about this quote--I thought the imagery was lovely, the language lyrical, and the message exactly what I wanted to say as I left the school that had nurtured me for thirteen years (yes you heard that right. thirteen years--but I loved it.).
I really believed in Jefferson's words. I believed that if I held on to this utopian dream, this utopian ideal, then I would, one day, find it. I left St. Catherine's with great expectations; I had total faith that college was going to be the greatest, biggest, most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me in my seventeen years. It would put me on a path towards the land of dreams, where I would meet those other dreamers with whom I would be dwelling in a land flowing with milk and honey and rainbows and My Little Ponies.
Well I think it's safe to say that life went down the shitter pretty quickly after I left St. Catherine's, and any illusions I had ever had of a utopian dream or a land of dreamers were quickly replaced by sickness, depression, and anxiety. I even transferred to UVA, where people herald Jefferson around every corner of the campus; his face, his words, his architecture, and his legacy are literally everywhere. But still, I had no dreams, and I certainly didn't have faith in any utopian dreams; for a long time, my soul wasn't in anything I did while I was at Virginia. It wasn't in my schoolwork, my relationships, anything.
Only in my senior spring did my head and my heart, very gradually, start settling back into normalcy. Physically and emotionally, I began to feel like myself again--to feel the confidence and the excitement that pulsed through my body when I was seventeen years old, on the brink of college. And since then, bit by bit and moment by moment, I've become excited about life again. To be fair, I have a lot to be excited about--a new marriage, a new school, new kitchen appliances (yes I know I'm superficial. And if you read this blog regularly you should already know that), a new(ish) state, a new(ish) dog, a BRAND NEW puppy, new friends, new sundresses from Old Navy (ditto on the superficial thing)--the list goes on.
When I was in Boston this weekend, I saw a friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in four years. She was one of my best friends as I graduated from St. Catherine's, but we both had difficult experiences at college (I like to say that we played musical colleges) and basically dropped off the face of each other's earth. This girl is one of the best people I know; thoughtful, purposeful, funny, smart, and kind. And I was devastated to lose her friendship during college.
Over the last year or so we've slooooowly gotten back into touch, and when I saw her this weekend, it was perfect--as if not a day had passed. The reunion was joyful, emotional, and natural; although each of us has really changed (for the better, I hope), we fell into a gentle, rhythmic conversation that I sort of wanted never to end (even though Preston and Callie were calling from afar).
We've made the decision that we want to be there for each other for the long haul; we want to be more than good friends to each other--we want to be great friends. The kind of friends who are still drinking wine together in forty years. The kind of friends who don't ever have to pretend around each other. The kind of friends who will not only be a part of each other's lives, but a part of our partners' and our childrens' lives as well.
And after this weekend, I have total faith that we will be those kind of friends. So perhaps, after all, there is something to be said for being seventeen and believing in utopian dreams. I think it's time to resurrect that thought. Here we go.
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