The Thread Unravelling

It's been nearly 10 years since I started college. Machias, and my life at the University of Maine in general was so formative, and so monumental to me at the time and in the years afterward, that it is with great poignance that I realize that it's really over. And has been.

Yes, I graduated years ago. And yes, I'm nowhere near the same person now that I was then. It feels like there have been several intervening lifetimes since then as a matter of fact. But I've lost touch with so many who were once so close and so dear.

I've known this, but have stubbornly denied the evidence. But the notion really came home to roost this evening. Last night, Nick and Erin phoned, but I was out so I waited to return the call until today. They are two of my most loved and dearest friends from the college days and we've stayed close. But after about a half hour spent catching up on the latest, there's not much more to say. So, I tell them I love them and say goodbye.

I then decided to return Head's call from a few weeks ago. I've decided that this must be the last time I use her ubiquitous college nickname and now call her "Jen." I have actively avoided doing this for years now, and not that it matters or that she cares. But the "Jen" of today is nowhere near the person "Head" was then. But I still see the farm girl with the Manic Panicked Green crewcut, despite the years and years of long honeyed curls since then. Despite that she's been married to her college sweetheart for over 5 years. So I call Jen and catch up on our mutual friends: who is where, how they are doing, who's had a baby, who's getting married, etc.

Then, there's not much else to say.

I know that this happens. It's part of life that as time goes by, the current picks up each one of us and floats us toward our different fates, and that we steer our little boats the best we can and we navigate the changes in our lives. But I miss my girls, who are no longer girls. We are mothers, wives, professionals, women. We are approaching 30. Gone are bedtime poems, parties that lasted for days, marijuana and Jim Beam or SoCo, the band, the patched-up mens' jeans, the piercings, the road trips, the laughter.

But somewhere, in another place and time, Machias lives on. It's winter there, and a carousing cadre of girls, young women, are wearing flannel pajama pants, storming into one another's dorm rooms, padding down the hallway in flipflops, borrowing a condom from a neighbor, cramming for an exam, ignoring the ringing hallway phone . . . all the while completely unaware that this will not last forever, and indeed, it's already over.