May 24, 2020
I’m remembering back in college, how I’d lost a couple of fellows to my roommate. She wasn’t prettier than me, nicer than me, funnier than me. Nothing like that. She weighed about 15 pounds less than me and that, for certain, must have been the reason. HA. I used to think that but it wasn’t that at all. The major difference between us is I’m an extrovert and she’s an introvert. She was painfully shy. I am all up right there living out loud right in front of you. And sometimes, apparently, I’m just “too much”.
I don’t know why men chose her over me. More men chose me, if we’re comparing overall numbers. But she was married and off the market for long stretches. And it’s not a competition, it never was. We’re just different. She’s still one of my best friends to this day. I’ve known her forty years. I love her Big. She’s been so kind and supportive and validating. And she’s not shy anymore. Not one bit.
She always takes my calls, even the suicide ones. And she tells me to call an ambulance and I do. Or she just tells me I’m worthy and valuable and I need to stay in the world and I go to bed and just give it another day.
So here I am, thinking about what happened forty years ago, when some major pricks passed me by for my roommate. And I was going to write a whole story about how that made me feel. But how insignificant that would be. Because that’s not the story at all. The story is our shared history and our shared support of one another through four decades of ups and downs and ugly and joy. That’s the story.
