Tell Them!

i have this feeling that posting about my roommate is going to be a two part series. i could go on forever about her, but i feel it would take two parts to cover the basics. when i speak about her, i call her my roommate, which makes it seem as though our relationship is almost just business. but how should i refer to her? dearest? the holder of my tears? my honeee???

we met in college and somehow clicked. we spent hours on the phone, not talking (i seemed to always be doing homework and she always had time for tv). i was older (still am) but she was more of a woman (still is). after college, we drifted apart... 5 years later we bumped into each other in a bar in brooklyn. density.... no, destiny.

oh boy, throw some life adventures in here, involving a "dream job", crazy wall-street-journal-reading republican boss, a crazy economy and seedy motel rooms in massachusetts (did i mention that we ended up working at the same place) and i wind up moving into the room that was left empty by her previous roommate, eons ago. and we fall into routine, like an old married couple. we shared 9/11, a steamy blackout and rent. ah, but most importantliest, we shared our dreams. the dreams we still had, the dreams that had died and dreams we were afraid to even imagine. i have a lot of dead dreams. sometimes i wonder if i still believe in them, if i still have them, but...

we imagine ourselves potential philantrhopists and spend endless hours seeking work in the non-profit realm, doing work that has absolutely nothing to do with what we studied in school (but who actually does work they are qualified to do?). we have grand dreams of travelling the world and periodically returning to our brooklyn homebase - yes, it's totally doable and we would be so flush with money we wouldn't even need to sublet. and one day, for her, it is done. she boards a jet plane for nigeria and just like that, pffft, she's gone.

at first she comes back every couple of months, for a few months, but then the times away become longer and the times back become shorter. now, it has been almost a year since i saw her last. but she has been busy - a year of national service, consulting jobs and gorgeous spots in snazzy magazines. always with an article about her incredible work - chasing her dreams, catching her dreams. i want to dream again.