Omg dude going through all our pictures made me remember all that we’ve been through together! I just all of a sudden remember going to STX with Janna and her sister for your birthday (her birthday?) when she just got pregnant with Parker, I remember celebrating one of our birthdays at that hideous tacky rock and roll themed restaurant in Georgetown, I think one time we celebrated Valentine’s Day get paella at Barcelona (?) the Spanish tapas place and I wrote in my journal how it was one of the few times at Georgetown I felt I sincerely had friends and was loved. And we lived together! I forgot that too, and I couldn’t understand how you all seemed able to get up at 8 AM to do hot yoga or whatever it was. To be honest I felt left out at the time, and sort of procrastinated writing this in fear of bringing up some old feelings of hurt, but looking back I hardly remember anything but the good times, it’s strange how memory is like that (at least mine). I remember our first Halloween where you were a cat (lmao$ and I was a “blackjack” and the first homecoming where I was like hey guys I think we’re supposed to party or something idk and you and (Marilyn? Kat?) were like oh no, we’re actually going to study 💀 and I was like ok and didn’t do anything because I had no other friends 💀💀💀. Then the next year (or semester) we tried to make up for it by getting season tickets and pretending we were basketball fans! What a time. I remember feeling like those tickets were so expensive but if I remember correctly it was literally something like $125.
I also went to California with you for the first time! That’s why it felt so special when you and drew moved to LA. I also remember the first time you told me about him and how you had not experienced love like this. He was in Kahzazstan(? Asia?) at the time and you shared this update over app Marco Polo that we tried (unsuccessfully) to use as a substitute for texting at the time. When you drew came back you said you were in a relationship and the rest was history! But I do so remember that first time you shared, I always remember the beginning of things for some reason.
Which brings me to your dad. I don’t remember meeting you but I do remember meeting him. I found it so strange you called him Brad back then, and even more confusing that he was the black parent and you called him by his first name so flippantly, I still nearly believed my dads name was legally “Daddy” at the time. But it was parents weekend and my parents couldn’t come and you were hyping him up. You said everybody loves Brad, he’ll take in anyone whose parents are not here, or something to that effect, etc. etc. I was so lonely at the time. Homesick, as before college the longest I’d ever been away from home was 5 days at a time. I felt so out of place and lost those first few months. I needed a dad so badly. I remember he came in (and he always remembered this too) and I rushed toward him, as if he was my own father. My dad still wasn’t a hugger at this time. I called him “Dad” from that first meeting LMAO. It was something instinctual, ancestral even, how badly I needed him in that moment and how he received me. It’s likely I hadn’t been touched, romantically, platonically, at all in months. I cry every time I think of this now that he’s gone, how childlike it was, how he embraced me. I think of that whenever you and I lose touch.
