She's got gaps. I got gaps. Together, we fill gaps.
(Animated gif unrelated, but I rewatched You've Got Mail (MY FAVORITE MOVIE) recently and it's so charming and Tom Hanks ahhh ♥)
In case you missed it, this past weekend I made it out to Philadelphia for an unwind/rewind/refresh trip! I really, truly wanted to write an entry that just said something like "best weekend I've had in a while" or "I freaking needed this" or "I've missed Suite Awesome" with a gif of me picking my nose or something, and that'd be about accurate, but as it turns out, I do have things to say. It's all blahblah and long-winded and disorganized stream-of-consciousness in which I lose the point a dozen times just to realize I never had one to begin with, so I'm not really expecting you to read it at all or even understand what I'm trying to say if you do. But I just wanted to write it down for posterity. (Posterior? (How often do I make this joke? (Often.)))
I've missed my people. I've missed them so much. I've missed the people that I can not talk to for months and then fall into an everyday kind of banter with. I've missed making stupid jokes and earning the groans of everyone (but a high five from Julien). It was unimaginably good to see them all again, and so, so comfortable to be back in Philly and on Harrison's bed and in Gabe's apartment and at a sticky-floored lesbian bar and all of it. For me, as I imagine it is for most people, college was such a formative experience, and seeing the places and faces that I so depended on for comfort and strength and shooting the shit... god, it was great.
Ten out of twelve of Suite Awesome were there this weekend (nine for noodles after graduation), and it was such a rush of happy thoughts and emotions. At one point I got a picture of Harrison, Adolfo, Julien, and Alex messing around in the gelato shop, and I thought back to the times when we did the same thing in the halls of Gummere freshman year. These folks are my people. They know me deepest, they've seen me grow the most over the past five years. They're precious to me, and it makes me so glad to know that they're there for me and we can fall into the same comfortable thing, whatever else happens. My hope is that that doesn't change, and that however else we grow up, there'll always be Suite Awesome... because Suite Awesome was a pretty awesome suite. :3.
And of course, graduation was great! I saw so many people~ And I found out that a few of my favorite children are headed out to UCLA for various graduate programs (linguistics, physics, and chemistry... the hell), so I'm excited to see familiar faces here on this side of the Mississippi. It's always a bit unnerving to think about how I saw these kids come in as freshmen, and how I mentored them and raised them in a number of capacities (as an Honor Code Orienteer, in the orchestra, in classes or as a friend), just to see them grow up and graduate and enter into the world of quasi-adulthood that I'm still navigating myself. But there's also a certain pride there, and excitement for them. All I did for most of them when I ran into them after graduation was jump up and down and squeal relentlessly because they're still so beautiful, all of them, and they're all going to do such great things with their lives. I'm kind of a useless mentor in that way since I never really have anything valuable to offer them except the once-every-few-months "hello how are you I still love you", but at the very least, I hope that they feel happy and loved. They're all so great and they're my little muffins, and they have such exciting times ahead of them~
And finally, a highlight for me, in a certain sense, was actually running into Isaac's parents at graduation. Here's the backstory: Isaac is my ex, who graduated two years ahead of me. We had an extended long-distance relationship while he was in Japan as an ALT in the JET Program (he still is, by the way, and he's reupped for his fourth year). I broke up with him at the beginning of my senior year (September '09, a couple of months before we would have hit three years together) after Harrison found me sobbing in my dorm room in the middle of the night because I realized I couldn't do it anymore. So, uh, yeah. That happened. And as it turned out, Sol(omon), Isaac's younger brother (whom I'd always been on good terms with, even post-breaking-up-with-his-brother), was graduating this year from our tiny, tiny school. And because during the ceremony I'd run into Sol's girlfriend, Juliaty, the news that I was at graduation inevitably got back to the 'rents, and they eventually found me milling around and chatted me up.
It was surprisingly nice, actually. And I wonder now why I ever doubted that it'd be nice, but I think there was always a part of myself who could never forgive the weak college girl who broke two hearts at once, and I didn't really expect Isaac's parents to be very forgiving on that end, considering how emotionally attached Isaac was to the relationship and how isolated he is in Japan and undoubtedly how heartbroken he was to get a cold e-mail after coming back from teaching kids one afternoon. (That was one of the main reasons I had to break up with him, actually; the fact that he was so dependent on me since he didn't have much else going on in Japan when I was trying to juggle a long-distance relationship and school and friends and enjoying the rest of my time in college ended up being too hard on me, and it turned what should have been a good, affirming relationship into a burden.) But, you know? They were as sweet as I remembered them being when they took me out as a part of the family during Isaac's graduation weekend. They were happy to see me and to know that I was doing well and lookin' sharp and all that.
Isaac's dad, Pete, told me that about a month ago, Isaac had said that the breakup was good, that he was finally able to start enjoying his time in Japan instead of clinging to (and ultimately stressing) a relationship a continent away. And that's true -- he's made friends since we broke up and actually gone out to see the other people in the program and do various group activities and volunteer work and all of that. And I'm glad. I'm surprisingly not resentful of the implication that I was "tyin' him down" (mainly because I know that I wasn't, really -- he was the one tying himself down to having no social contact besides me), and it's nice to know that he sees that we both needed the space and freedom to live our own lives that only a breakup would allow. It was also good to hear that Pete recognized what I did about the relationship -- that Isaac was clinging, and that when it got bad he should have stepped back instead of holding on tighter, that we both lacked a little bit of understanding of the other's situation and that we both would have handled it a little differently if it had meant to be that way.
Sometimes I wonder, though I know it's not a useful thought exercise. Because we really were good together, and he really is one of the sweetest guys I know. And I think to myself, where would we be now if we'd pushed through it? If I'd been strong enough to handle it, if he'd give me just enough space to enjoy it again, if we'd been able to endure another year of long distance before he came back. But after I've talked to Isaac's parents, I don't really feel the need to wonder anymore. It's kind of like I'm sealing that envelope and sending it off to the corner of my mind, never to be opened again, which is in a way really empty and lonely. But more than anything else, it's a kind of warm relief that I'm feeling right now, understanding finally what my mom had told me after I told my parents that I broke up with Isaac: "you both are good kids". Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it's good that it happens, and it's so cathartic to know that everyone feels the same way about this one.
So yeah. Good weekend. :3. Except now I can't pay for rent in two weeks ohgod why am I like this what have I doneeeeee