Dear Champagne, Ananymous and AA,
Thank You. And that's an understatement.
I remember the blur and the rush of this morning, getting ready to leave for the airport. Calls to the cab company interspersed with sips of the morning brew. Uploading pictures and laughing over them mixed in with packing and quick showers. The ride to the airport, where I watched as each of you walked into security check, and waited beyond till I could no more see the tall form of my friend over the rest of the crowd. The train ride back home, as I looked at all the pictures we'd taken together, and laughed (and, call me silly, but sometimes, choked back stray tears) over them.
I thank you for giving me a wonderful vacation. In a city that I have called home for the last four years, I have actually felt at home only since Friday. I watched in pride as all of you 'ooohhed' and 'aaahhhed' over Chicago, and fell in love with my city all over again with you all. Thank you for giving me memories of conversations and laughs at every well-frequented street corner. Thank you for bearing with my craziness as only old, old friends can. Thank you for staying up late every night and waking up early the next day - all geared up for a wonderful time. Thank you for your enthusiasm. Thank you for all those discussions on everything from culture to corporate policies. Thank you for raising all those intellectually stimulating topics and for responding to mine as only you would! Thank you for the feeling of lightness and freedom I felt in your company. Thank you for the wittiness and the smiles and the craziness and for a wonderful draught of all the things that have been 'us' for all these years!
As I walked home, I felt as though I could see us all walking somewhere ahead of me. I've walked that way a million times in the four years I've been here, but this time it was different. Here is the place that Ananymous strained her foot, here's where Champagne said
that word in her very special brand of
hindi, here's where AA threatened to crumple down in exhausted hunger if "you girls don't hurry up" and get him to the restaurant (a ten-minute train ride away) within the next five minutes.
I walked into the front door, and into my room. Yes, one might say the place is in a mess now, just like you all told me it would be. But it suddenly felt quiet and way too large for just one me. Just until a few hours ago there were four of us in here, filling the room with that camaraderie that is so specifically 'us'. Some part of me wanted to believe it was all a dream and that I would wake up and find me back in time with you all again. In the absence of that, I started to hope that at least one of you had left something behind to reassure me that you were
indeed here. I took a look around the room. Nothing. Then my eye caught a little white scrunchy on the bed. Ananymous was here. The cell-phone rang and it was you, Champagne, announcing your safe arrival in LA. The room suddenly rang with your voice and I felt reassured. I came to the desk, to write to you all, to thank you - and there was my final confirmation, on the laptop - a flight reservation to Houston and a few other windows opened to the F-1 race results and the Wimbledon men's final. No prizes to guess which one of you that is.
So, you were here! My room is still reverberating with the confidences its walls were allowed to share. The "What happens here, stays here" rule applies everywhere except in that part of us called memory, which is lightweight, but limitless in time and space. That, and the photographs, one of which is on my desktop as a reminder of the wonderful time you gave me this weekend.
I love you all!
-Summer.
P.S.
This day marks when we had planned this vacation! Do you remember?
