Refreshing
Yesterday, I got to meet with my old friend Kris. It had been a really long time since we have spoken. He used to go to my high school but now is a freshman at Valparaiso University. I’ve only been able to exchange a few words with him since he graduated high school, except after drama club shows. We had been really good friends his senior year, he even took me to prom. We were in a bunch of productions together too, ever since my sophomore year we had been acting together. He always played a funny character and always played someone that was the high school version of a Marilyn Monroe type of girl. You know the type. We have a strange relationship, where it’s purely based on hurtling insults at each other like we are arch enemies. It’s always a refreshing time when we’re together. He texted me after the April Antics show this past weekend, asking to interview me for a final paper on social change within the community. He wanted me to talk about my involvement with the gun control movement I’m heading within Valpo. I told him yes, but only if he jumped off a cliff first.
We met at VU at 10 in the morning. On a Saturday. That’s too early for a weekend. I almost cancelled because I had not been able to go to bed until 3 in the morning the night before. I was exhausted. But, I chugged some coffee, put on a pair of pants and met him at the Union hall. I had only been in the Union Hall twice before. Once to take pictures for prom and the other time, I can’t recall the reason, I think I just walked through incredibly quickly. Either way, I never have spent time within VU except at the library where I sometimes go to work on homework. I was kind of lost inside, I had shown up early, so I found a seat right next to a plant in a corner where no one could find me. He showed up right at 10 am and automatically made fun of me for hiding in the corner. I explained that because I look like a middle schooler, even though I’m only a couple months younger than the freshman here, that I was suspect to being asked by college students why I was there and if I needed help finding my mom. He understood and agreed that was a very reasonable explanation, because I in fact do look like a 12 year old.
We ended up sitting in the cafeteria, as it’s the only place you can really speak as loudly and freely as you want. We came right during breakfast rush, so it was pretty packed. Some of the VU basketball players were there, so that was fun. ;) It was really nice catching up with him. He had a list of things he needed to ask me. Realistically, it could have taken us maybe 45 minutes to get the interview done. But, alas, that did not happen. We ended up goofing around so much and caught up that it took us from 10 am to 1:30 pm to finally finish up. We discussed the formation of our friendship, which we came to the discovery that we only became actual friends after I made him watch 10 Beyonce music videos with me at a cast party. Before then we had only casually conversed backstage during our fall production his senior year, but this further solidified our friendship. We tried to find the origin of our insult game, where we try to be as offensive as possible to one another. We discovered that it was because of how we used to tell each other not to mess up before we would go on stage to perform. Which then turned into us saying hello to one another in the hallway, and the day I did not say hello back, he decided to yell at me across the hallway to go ‘screw’ myself. It the progressed from there to us channeling our inner sailor as we make everyone around us believe we actually hate one another. It’s always quite fun.
It’s an odd friendship, but one I will definitely miss while I am gone. These things make me wonder what my relationships will consist of while I’m away. Whether we’ll actually stay in touch. Or what it will be like when I come back. If we’ll be able to pick up where we left off or if I will change so much that it’s impossible. It’s odd to know that I am going to change so much, but everyone back home will be the same. Somehow it’s refreshing as well.