i signed up for facebook about a year and a half ago. actually, i didn’t sign up for it, mary signed me up. mary, a seminarian, who, like me at the time, found herself temporarily homeless, living on the kindness of a college chaplain. the chaplain, a friend of mine, has an extra room in her house and she let me and the wonder kitties come and stay for a month when i was between jobs and was done with my old lease and not wanting to resign for that part of town.
anyway…there i was, a brent house refugee, as were mary and her sister. it was actually a really fun time. we made a lot of brownies, played a lot of weird-ass, make-yourself-an-avatar video games, watched REALLY BADDDD reality TV (i mean, bridezillas is bad even by my standards). it was a lot like being back in college–no job (no studying either!), living with other women, figuring things out.
one night mary says to me “what’s your email address?” and i reel it off without thinking much of it. and lo and behold i am now on facebook. mary took the time to set up my interests, which she had figured out after 2 weeks in the same house with me and we were off and running.
here’s the thing that’s been interesting of late: i’ve connected with a lot of agnes scott college people. and it’s been really quite amazing. because as i’ve written here before–i don’t have the fondest memories of good ol ASC. in retrospect, much of that has to do with my own growing up, my own learning who i was/am and growing into my own skin. so i have steered clear of that part of my life for a long time. and suddenly, through the world of facebook, it is reopening to me.
perhaps the most delightful has been my roommate from my freshman year, jennifer. to see the things that have changed and the things that have stayed the same (geez louise, she still lists The Lost Boys on her list of movies to see for Halloween–she must have played the soundtrack to that movie 240 million times our freshman year!), in as far as one can tell via cyber space, is kind of wild. my memories–skewed and scattered as they are–still link back to her, our understanding of who we were, our growing understanding of who we are.
i remember, in the salmon pink walls of 214 walters hall, we lived without matching bedspreads. the dean had linked us because (i think) we both indicated we wanted someone who cared about religion–i suspect i checked that my christian faith was important to me. no doubt jennifer did the same. my episcopal and her more pentecostal backgrounds were undoubtedly different, yet we adjusted well. of course despite my request, i never, save one time, went to church the entire four years i was there, which makes the whole religion-matters-to-me-check-here box kind of funny in retrospect.
jennifer would keep this candy her grandmother had sent–wrapped in tinfoil, made of potato and sugar–the strangest flavor, yet profoundly kind, jennifer would share it. and while i appreciated the gesture then, i appreciate it even more now–for that candy was home, it was grandmother’s hands, it was love that was tangible and mailable all at once.
and so i read these posts–on my facebook wall, messages sent to my facebook inbox–and i can hear the voices of these women–back when we were just barely more than girls–i can hear them in my head. i think what’s amazing and exciting for me is how much i’m enjoying reconnecting, how much i like them, how i am, in some small way, getting a “do-over” for the time away, the times of living in fear and anxiety. and how the common thread of a few years in a small liberal arts space has shaped and formed us whether we wanted it to or not.
The Caffeinated Priest 