Preparing for Silence

August 15, 2016

We are never silent.

Of course, there have been the quieter moments, the late late late nights curled up on couches and floors, blankets and shoulders draped haphazardly across each other, sleepy thoughts slipping forward to warm our fingertips and our bodies. There have been the bonfires, the flaming marshmallows, the laughter that infuses the evening sky with red, bright as the stars. There have been the beaches and the downpours and the board games spread across the carpet and the sit-down dinners where we pass the salt and linger at the table, just talking, long after the food has disappeared.

But these past three years (only three) are so crammed with happy noise that it spills over the edges and fills every empty space inside of me. These past three years, I have had the privilege of seeing, however briefly, the world from your eyes. Each time, it is a different color; each time, it is beautiful.

I was just the new girl who started showing up to lunch one day and only talked to like two people in the beginning and somehow it is coming to an end like this—a last supper in our best clothes, fancy silverware, four hours of conversation so effusive it could probably be heard from the house next door. Inside jokes and revelations and enough absurdity to rival a sitcom. (Last night could have been a sitcom.) It is coming to an end and I have already forgotten how it began, only that it did, and that now it is—so quickly—over.

There will be no more lunchtimes on the floor of our home, no more debates about politics or restaurant takeout policies. There will be no more prom drama (probably a good thing) or subtle—blatant—shade-throwing (also a good thing) or obnoxious singing (definitely a good thing).

But it will all be softer. Quieter. Maybe even silent.

That is how it will feel, I think. Come Wednesday, and our separate lives begin.

When applying to college, I was asked to answer the question what matters to you, and why? and I chose to write about you.

Years from now, these are the people I will call first with good news, I wrote. I have fallen asleep on them, smashed birthday cake in their faces, stayed up all night with them wondering where the universe ends. We are seventeen and eighteen and on the verge of growing up, realizing what it’s like to care about someone else more than we care about ourselves.

Out of all of the things that matter to me, you are the most certain, the most steadfast, the most real.

And it’s been nice, hasn’t it? Our ridiculous times together. Annoying everyone in our proximity. Literally driving people away from us in public places. So wrapped up in our loud, unbelievable lives that we sometimes forget about everything else.

Loving each other, however difficult it may have been sometimes, with our whole hearts.

I’m still not prepared for this goodbye. But I know, really, that we’ll see each other soon.

So get ready, world.

Here we come.