Although it's a fact that new
friends usually meet with surprise, I've never been part of a stable family.
Having a mother with a chronic illness, a set of grandparents I never got to
meet, an estranged father and parents who divorced after almost 20 years of
marriage defines that statement. Now 21, I've grown accustomed to riding the
emotional Sauter family wave all the way to shore. In fact, with a teen-age
sister and often-sick mother as my two closest family members, life sometimes
feels like it constantly exists in the breakwater.
I never enjoyed stability - until the summer I moved into an apartment in
Charlottesville, Va., with three other college juniors.
Although sometimes
there were doubts about living. On the morning of July 26, 2003, all I
could see were black, purple and amorphous shapes, formed from the insides of
my eyelids as I lay on the bathroom floor I shared with Nancy. Both of us
realized that day we were less smart than Tommy, the eight pound terrier mix
who eyed us pitifully from the doorway, shaking his canine head at our
overzealous celebration of Nancy's 21st birthday. Most people probably wouldn't look back
on such a memory with a smile, but I do - there's no one I'd rather lay on the
floor wanting to die with than Nancy. Nancy, Jackie, Shannon and Kelly - the
Summer of '03. Three of us went back a decade, to the days of Girl
Scouts and high school proms. Kelly was a lucky coincidence, full of life and
one of the most effervescent personalities I'll ever meet. As for Nancy and
Shannon, our time living together - the first prolonged time we'd spent in the
same place since high school graduation - further cemented a bond that I know
will outlast countless other friendships, relationships and struggles.
Charlottesville is beautiful: full of foliage, the trees are enormous, and
rooted deeply in the knowledge that they're not going anywhere any time soon. It
seems appropriate now that our relatively "old" friendship was celebrated in
such a deeply historical place, where Thomas Jefferson might as well be the
pope. None of us accomplished much in those few months. I took a
college course, Nancy worked in a restaurant, and Shannon was a tour guide for
the University of Virginia. We've since relocated to our normal locales - New
York City, College Park and Virginia. Nancy spent almost half a year studying in
the Middle East. Shannon accepted an internship in Washington and spent much of
the next summer with me. And my mom's been back in the hospital three or four
times. Each time, the two of them offered more love and support than I could
ever ask for.
It's ironic that to truly learn the value of family, I had to move in with my
friends. Now, we refer to each other as 'sisters' - and nothing could be closer
to the truth.
I've heard the saying that if you have one person you can truly call a good
friend, consider yourself lucky. Well, I've been blessed with more than one; I
have no right to ever complain.
I've never been close to being a "homebody," but so many nights that summer I
never minded if I left home. I laughed constantly, and smiled even
wider than I normally do. I'd wake up to "post-it" notes from my best friends,
apologizing for crazy antics from the night before or offering when they'd
return home from work. Every Wednesday was Margarita night, and every day was
anything-goes. It probably helped that it was summer, and warm, and we were
living on a beautiful college campus that so many students truly love. I like to
think that we could have been living in the Sahara (which one of us later did).
I was ambushed in the parking lot on the day I moved in by two crazy girls and a
plate of freshly baked cookies; I left three months later with the knowledge
that nothing could ever top what I'd just lived through.
Photo by Spencer Sabin