(The rest of the ages: One Through Six, Seven And Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve And Thirteen, Fourteen And Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen and Eighteen.)
2001, aged nineteen
I spend the holiday break moving my sister from California to Seattle with my dad, step-mom and eight-year-old little brother. We take two cars up to Washington and my sister, dad and I are in one. We take turns choosing the music and we groan our way through the others' selections and we give my dad a hard time about all the things he insists on pointing out to us--"Look at that rock right there! Have you ever seen a rock so ... round ... before? Oh, wait, is that a bluejay? We stop in Eugene, Oregon and in the middle of an Outback Steakhouse my little brother lets it slip that I have a tattoo. My dad is surprisingly calm about it and will tell me later--after catching a glimpse of it, for the first time--that it's kind of nice. I stay with my sister in her new apartment when we arrive in Seattle, and because of the eating disorder I still can't quite shake, I end up spending a night in the emergency room with what the doctors tell me is a slight esophageal rupture. I don't think anyone knows what to do with me except wring their hands and worry.
Back at school, Natalie and I begin spending a lot of time together--driving to Houston to see movies, going to bars to watch Texas Country artists play, eating lunch on campus--and through her I meet a guy who is funny and cute, in a kind of awkward way. He's a good guy, though, and I like him. He makes me feel safe and wanted and hopeful. He leaves a rose for me on the seat of his car and gives me a nickname. We whisper a lot of drunken promises to each other, and I think to myself, This is going somewhere, this crazy little unexpected relationship. But one night as I'm reading on his bed, I look over to see him at his computer, IMing a friend of mine. It sort of strikes me as odd--when did they exchange screen names?--but I don't think too much of it, he's making friends with my friends, I think, along with more spinning we sometimes do to convince ourselves our gut is wrong. And then one day soon thereafter he breaks up with me, and I ask him if it's because of her. And it is. Natalie got me through that time, writing me funny e-mails and glaring at him whenever she could. In the end it was fine, he wasn't the guy for me, it all worked out, I moved along and as everyone learns at one point in life your gut is so rarely, rarely wrong.
After a summer at home, exhaustedly working at a daycare center every day, I return to school and move into my sorority house, where I still don't know a single person all that well. I move into a room with a girl named Lauren and two other girls. Lauren and I start hanging out, driving to McDonald's and Fazoli's and going to Aggie football games together. About two weeks into the school year, I walk out of my American History class and wait for the bus to take me back to the house for a much-needed nap. As I stand there a girl is crying hysterically, screaming for a cellphone. As we pile onto the bus, there's a newscast streaming from the radio, and it takes the entire ride home to realize what has happened across the country while I had been jotting notes on The Great Depression. I pick Lauren up from class later that day, and we visit her parents; it's her mom's birthday--September 11--and my sister's is two days later. As you probably know--as you can probably remember--it takes a long while before anyone feels much like celebrating.
Through all the chaos and confusion of my second year of college and of that particular time for our country, I have found a great friend in Lauren. A friend who stays out late with me, sneaking gulps of raspberry vodka outside of smoky Texas bars; a friend who lets me borrow her shoes even though I don't take excellent care of them; a friend who stays up all night talking with me about the guys we're seeing--they are all nuts this year, aren't they Lauren?--and a friend who encourages me to run for our sorority council, a sorority I wasn't even sure I felt a part of just months before. But I decide to run. And I make it. (I should probably mention I ran unattested, shouldn't I? Fine, I ran unattested, but there was still work involved! It wasn't so easy! I swear it!)
Lauren and I are now on council together, and we are joined by a handful of other great, smart, funny women. Our president is Crystal. Cherie is our VP of Marketing. We couldn't have known it back then, when we all sat down in an alum's house to learn the ropes of our new positions; we couldn't have known that we were sitting across the room from our future bridesmaids, from the women we'd go through devastating breakups with, health crises and failed classes, women we'd hang on tightly to and cry with and huddle up to watch Oprah or The Bachelor with and travel to Mexico and Vegas and Tahoe with and women we'd end up celebrating the highest highs and the lowest lows with. We couldn't have known we were just beginning friendships that would go on to last the next seven years. And would then go on to last a lifetime after that.