New Year, Old Friends

Katie D.

January 1, 2012 - 4:07 PM

Happy 2012! I ushered in the New Year with the most wonderful celebration I can imagine: rushing into the future in the presence of the best members of my past.

My closest undergraduate friends all met in Portland for the weekend. There haven't been this many of us together since graduation. Three of us now live in Washington, DC (all for different reasons, which feels like a spectacular coincidence) and two in Arizona. One is in Japan. Although we keep in touch through phone calls and emails, it is not the same as in-person conversation. And I visit the folks who still live in Portland as regularly as I can, but there is a different kind of friendship when an old group gets back together than the individual hang-out time you get with one member of that bigger group.

With all of us scattered to the four winds, I was starting to worry it would take a wedding to get us back together. Thank goodness a New Years celebration sufficed.

We celebrated just like in the old times. We shared food and drink, and lots of dancing. We caught up on our recent stories, and our changing lives. There were relationship updates and endless discussion of people's future plans (grad school, med school, jobs, travel, etc.) For this group of optimistic and enthusiastic folks, it seems like the future is always opening, even for those waiting to hear back about med school interviews. There is always some next great goal and next hopeful development. We're on a roll, and a dance party can only make the situation better.

I haven't spent much time as happy as I am with this group. We have all the inside jokes; we know all the lyrics. As fast as things are changing, there is a sense of comfort and familiarity, and that these friendships stay the same. We danced our way into the New Year just like we danced through dorm life, our first finals week, our first reunion after a summer apart, our thesis writing, and then our graduation.

These undergraduate friends were the touchstone of my college life. They were my dorm friends, and my roommates: my partners in study and in adventure during my University of Oregon years. Now that they've left Eugene, I live in a very different town than when the Group was a Eugene institution. These folks know me better than anyone else in my life, both because of the time we shared and because of the formative changes experienced during that time. They saw me grow into the adult I've become, in the fastest-changing period of my life.

So here's hoping that the Group has brought in a fabulous New Year. Here's to 2012 as a time of adventure and exploration. 2012 will see my graduation from the UO. It will launch me into post-college life, and even further away from the setting and daily friendships which were so central to my identity. I have a feeling this is going to be a good year.

Happy New Year! And thank you, always, to my wonderful friends. You all make me who I am.