This is the feeling.

It is an invisible set of strings that pull at my neck. Sometimes it crains, sometimes it jerks, but it always stiffens. I notice myself pausing then thinking. Sometimes I grip the pen a little harder and sometimes I slap my hand on the table. I notice myself pausing and thinking.

We often look each other in the eye and I think, "We are really good at faking it." An then we hug and tell jokes and drink cheap champagne.

I think, "You absolutely hate my guts," and then we smile and go about our ways. When we are together, I see that we are in different places and I find myself listening and others talking and then I'm talking and everyone has found shit else to do.

Sometimes we drink a lot and we say things like, "I kinda hate you," except I don't say them and everyone else says them to everyone else, and especially to me. And then we laugh it off and have another shot. And then sometimes we make eye contact and linger and think, "No, I really do hate you," but I'm not far enough into my drink to say what I am thinking.

We like to pretend that we are honest and not mean, because our futures are ahead of ourselves and we all live so far away and it's just not the same, but we know the truth and we play sadistic little games because we are bored.  

We are all starting to understand something that's felt abundantly clear to me for years.

Last Friday night, I stumbled down the hair grease-covered stairs of Ruby for my best friend's birthday. Lourdes was upset that many of her friends did not show up and I could understand her grievances.

Barrett and I often discuss the rewards and challenges faced as college students in the city. We get first hand experience of the immense amounts of culture, music, and lifestyles that our peers in other isolated towns don't. Once they graduate, their subsequent years will be spent saving money, finding jobs, renting a first apartment and making new friends in an environment unlike the ones of their childhood and their collegiate years. Meanwhile, we will already be established and connected to the city like second skin, assure of ourselves and our surroundings.

But one of the problems, the inevitable problem, is the distance public transportation provides. Because we can all just hop on a train or a bus, we feel no need to stay close to maintain our connections. Freshman year, we lived in the dorms, but sophomore year created new challenges: rent checks, electric bills, and a longer commute. It's not enough to merely walk down the stairs to visit a friends room in Munroe Hall. Now, it's a twenty minute walk - perhaps a bus or train ride - to see a friend. We disperse for different reasons. But still, because we are older (and wiser?), we no longer feel the need to maintain those relationships. We are not confined to one dorm, or one campus, or one neighborhood. There are jobs and internships and responsibilities, and why should we feel obligated?

That's what I want to ask myself. Why?

Well, why not?

And also, doesn't that make everything before that seem, false?

I'm in the position now, only a month away from senior year, in which I can look back wholeheartedly at my freshman year and wonder if those friendships were really friendships and not merely a way to pass the time, to feel acquainted, to feel like a true college student. Do we really care about each other, or do we find in each person some sort of convenience to mask the problems that arise from living in the city, living on your own, living with a strange, gigantic amount of freedom at such a young age?

I think of Lourdes and don't have to worry about this. I think of Barrett and Colleen and Hafsa and Kristen and don't have to think twice about those friendships. Those are true, and real, and monumental.

But then I think about the other girls, the other guys, and whether or not we are silently using each other, to what? To not feel so insecure, so unsure, so strange. We tell ourselves that we are mature, and refined, and special, but it all feels like a joke, and even though we have this culture and LIFE on our finger tips, we still want to just drop by someone's place and "hang out".

My weekdays now are an amalgamation of classes and jobs and internships. I don't have the time to make small talk. I can't just "hang out" and I forget what it feels like, even though my familiarity with the concept is limited at best. 

Fall quarter of freshman year was such a colossal mess that it's no wonder these sporadic, effervescent memories my friends sometimes like to share were times in which I wasn't there. I was with him, or at home, but never on campus, and perhaps that is reason enough to quash this entire entry. 

My experiences are limited enough.

"See, I want that!" Barrett exclaimed last Sunday night during his post-graduation shindig. Barrett recalled spending time at a friend's house and having two other people randomly stop by to invite them to hang out. "I want that!" he said, I couldn't have agreed more. Living alone has only made that fact more of a realization. The solitude invites longing for those "true" college experiences that you just don't get when you refuse to take a cab because you're broke and have to wait for the train. We're not just walking across campus. We're wandering around neighborhoods and I have to wonder whether or not it's the distance or the apathy that makes our relationships so strange and obtuse and false.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran into Ryan and Alex in the quad after my Peer Education and Theory class.

"Hey!" they proclaimed as I joined them.

"Hey!" I said.

"So what's up?" Ryan asked.

"Nothing much, just getting out of a class. You?"

"Oh, we have to print something out for class."

"Ahhh," a long pause, "You know, this is the first time that I've talked to you guys without a drink in me."

It was an embarrassing truth, but a truth nonetheless, one that we could laugh about and one that also reminded me of the falsity of many of my relationships in the city. Bonding over a good glass of wine, a great song, a favorite outfit, but all under the context of a planned get together, an organized event, and not because our sporadic nature made us jump across the hall to say "hello".

That night, Lourdes gave me a long and sloppy hug as she expressed her grievances with the situation. And then she sauntered away and a really good song came on, and I bounced my way over to the booth where I ran into that friend that made me want to run away from the city I've called home for twenty years.

We caught up and Christy spilled her own grievances about the University of Chicago.

"It's so good to get out, you know? The campus can be so confining," she said.

I shook my head in agreement.

So confining, yes, but somewhere to call home.

So confining, yes, but somewhere a little more true. 

This is sad because it's true.

This weekend felt a lot like when I felt like an actual college student and not just a young woman with a full load of classes.

It's silly. BUT.

I was excited to put on gobs of eyeliner and glitter shadow and think about my outfit and know I would have a good time.

Barrett and I rode the train together, and we talked. In the back of my mind, I reminisced about our two years of late night train rides, inside jokes and dance parties. He is a kindred spirit in that respect, and with him, one can't help but feel confident and smart and who they truly are. He thinks critically, independently, and passionately; a rarity in this self-absorbed generation. I say to myself, when Barrett thinks, he doesn't just have a thought, he has an idea, insight, something, ANYTHING to add to the conversation.

Although we were going to an old friends, it felt like our first adventures together. One night freshman year is still a constant source of surreal memories. I like to think of it as the first night in which I let loose of my inhibitions and didn't end up with an old bucket in front of my face by the end of the night.

Somewhere in Lincoln Square, above a coffee shop, I ran around a house party, giddy, enthusiastic and eager as my cream-colored dress flowed around me. I am a girl in dark, stark colors most days: black tights, black dresses, black dress boots, black sweaters, black eyeliner. For me, the neo-goth aesthetic works but that day I was outside of my element, in sequined flats and bangles and, strange enough, it still felt fine, free. Our friends in Lincoln Park opted out, and I was curious. In the realm of things, it was meant to fall into place as such.

I remember sitting on the back porch at a rusted patio table with a group of people I didn't know, all discussing their hopes and grievances. More hope than anything else. I miss that naivete. We were all young and naive but maneuvered our surroundings with assurance of ourselves. A theatre student from Columbia pulled up a chair, her mousy brown hair messy and in waves framed her face. I was fascinated, as I am with most people. Some say that I am staring, but I call them moments of complete observation. I tend to do this a lot. It seems to get me in more trouble then I would like. She talked with a burning cigarette almost falling out of chapped lips. No hands, just bits of falling pieces of ash I feared would catch fire to her hair, her tattered white t-shirt or her floral peasant skirt that grazed the ground like a ball gown.

I looked around for Barrett. He already disappeared. By then, we knew each other for only half a year or so, but I still felt the need to cling because this party was a little sweetly odd. My friends in the dorm continued to shelter themselves in Lincoln Park and even now, I resent their fears, their apathy and their boredom. But then, two years ago, I clearly needed to establish my independence and perhaps Barrett saw that as well, or saw it for himself.

That nigt it was Greg. It was also Brian and Beth and Rachel. I met a lot of people I don't talk to now but it certainly felt good to know them then, at that moment. To my friends, I say it was a lot of fun. To myself, I say it was a lot of firsts, good and bad, that I should not write here suffice to say that they are memorable and maybe, I don't know, necessary.

This weekend though, in all of its simplicity felt like those earlier moments, where there was much to discover, and I miss that. It's surprising the levels of opportunity that open themselves to you as you get older and the easier it is to close yourself off from them because you've settled into a routine. Routines, it's all about routines and as I inch closer and closer to my senior year, and then to graduation, I realize the routines that are so fundamental to my day to day life make me angry, and bitter, and disappointed and regretful and no one should have that, at least not when they can't legally buy a drink. 

By 11PM, I had to take a break.

Well, we all did.

I think I started earlier than intended and subsequently had to take that break, finding myself sprawled along the edge of the couch in the Ice Box.

At one point, while trying to situate the shots of vodka and tequila mixed with cheap champagne in my hunger-enthused stomach, I saw Katie run into the living room, grabbing my not-yet-finished bottle of champagne from the mini-fridge.

We would later wrap her in her own comforters as she couldn’t make it before the new year started.

Last year, we found ourselves thrown into the thirst of the city, without much going as for plans. A cab ride gave us a straight shoot down Fullerton as, at 11:55PM, it was decided that watching the fireworks at the beach would be the best alternative. I was the one to pay, and I nearly sprained my ankle in three inch heels trying to make it to the rocks, to continue the night with good friends.

My mother says that how you spend your New Years determines the following year. She also says that a clean house means a clean, fresh, new start.

I’m hoping so.

Last night, I spent a good couple of hours cleaning my apartment. I’m not going to elaborate on its state of disarray, suffice to point out that there were take out items that horrified me with their original date of order.

And today (yesterday) is New Years Eve.

Although last year was fun, it does seem to accurately reflect this past year.

My time was spent in flux, not quite sure of relationship status, friendship status, school status.

--

Yummy, gooey, greasy pizza.

That’s how the night began.

Actually, let me back up a bit. There was my time spent collecting all of my laundry and shoes and other random assortment of items from my house in the suburbs. And then running to the mall with Lourdes and picking up a dress for her before close at 5PM. And then going back to her place, and then driving on the expressway to my place with lots of Brazilian Girls and a slight snow storm.

I continued cleaning up a bit, heeding my mother’s words.

But then the delicious, despicable Chicago’s pizza, that pizza that I know I shouldn’t eat and yet I do, rarely, because it’s just so damn good. That pizza would come back to haunt me later in the morning, but for then, it was good.

On a random stretch of Milwaukee, Lourdes, Jenny, Steph Squared, Amy and I ventured to a loft party with cheap beer, strong mixed drinks, and a couple of DJs. After last years spontaneity, it was nice to have a plan, and stick with it, and have a good time catching up and, as the clock struck twelve, good friend.

“One More Time” played and champagne flew threw the air and I thought, if this is my new year, if this is 2008, it couldn’t be any better. Good friends, good drinks, good music. What more could you want?

The flip of the hair, the toss of a coin, the purse of a smile; each of these things rely on chance, the possibility of a supposed outcome, the hope for a significant result.

Forget about that time and remember those in which you laughed and could not stop, when your chest began to collapse in the moment, the tears that ran down your eyes as you sat, as you ran, as you stood and felt. Forget about that time, those bad times, and how long they lasted. Remember the lunches, conversations, glances given, notes written and the secrets shared. Remember those little things and not that one big thing that even now, as I write this to you then, you can not admit. Hug them; yes them, those few around you, who get you, who get what you will become in life, what you accomplish as the years go by. They are real, true and eternal. These friends are the ones you’ll recall when you type along the pads of a keyboard or write across the lines of a journal. They showed you, who you are, and what you could become and how important your life is in this monumental expanse of country. Forget about the “there” and worry about the “then”, the moment, who you are at that age and only at that age. Slide down the slide and climb up the hill, scream and kick and play

 

And so it begins.

This is the time where you first collect yourself, and your friendships. The days before classes begin is the period in which we feel a strong desire to reconnect with friends we have lost touch with over the summer. You have gone your separate days for a month or two and now clamor to once again become that whole that fell so effortless earlier in the year. It is also a time of questioning, as in, did the way we left things mean that we can still be friends. Sometimes I wonder this as I run from coffee to tea to dinner and everywhere in between. In a sense, you understand what has been accomplished since the end of the last school year and so then, the frantic pace to get somewhere you don't really want to go in the first place seems so false. And, cost wise, seems so stupid. I am spending money, you think, to be around people who you don't even care for, and who, unequivocally feel the same way about yourself.

Today, however, was not one of those days and I feel at ease to have spent the time with friends Kristen and Liza, knowing that when a true friendship occurs, the months apart, the absence of communication doesn't necessarily reiterate the absence of appreciation. 

The best friend, the one that understand you, but doesn't have to agree with you. And you're okay with that. We are two separate people built on similar histories. And so, as juniors, having known each other since 6th grade, the friendship continues to grow because somethings, like late millenial boy bands and trashy romance novels, never grow old, only memorable.

I wrote an entry about myself, finally getting over my friendship issues, about only being concerned with the friends who I can actually consider friends, the ones that want to spend time with me, the ones that are actually interested in things that I have to say and don't merely turn to the next person they see when I try to share information, especially after I spent time talking to them about their own issues. Friends who are inclusive rather than exclusive, who don't make me feel small and insecure and ugly.

And then I removed it, afraid of upsetting someone's feelings.

And I realized that I have more "friend" issues that I imagined in the first place.