Grow up with me
To Riya & Selin + Happy Thanksgiving!
Dear Riya and Selin,
I made it to DC for my connecting flight! Writing this on the plane as I fly across the pond. Pieces of cat hair still cling to my sweater - hence the occasional sneezes. But I’m getting teary now not because of my deadly allergies but because of how the past few days have filled my heart with so much gratitude for our beautiful friendship. Years flash before my eyes: all the difficult decisions, the growing pains. We are still here together, feeling truly seen and loved by one another. Good things don’t just happen, they grow from all that we’ve poured in.
Late August, first day of college, Philosophy 1001H. The door was shut, Riya and I chatted outside, thinking we were so early only to realize ten minutes later that the class had already begun. Back then we must have thought time was infinite. Everyone was in their seat, and there’s Silverman in his throne: big brain, firecracker hair donned in a faded sweater and old-school New Balance. Aristotle reincarnated. Through his serene yet kindled gaze, I saw something he understood that I didn’t.
Silverman was probably giving a class intro, but most likely he just fired at us his trademark ego-impaling questions that made everyone doubt their whole existence. Selin sat in the first row by the window with big Lorde curls, looking cool and unapproachable. Of course I found out later that she listened to metal and played guitar and studied medicine. Silverman told us about beating his leukemia though it had come back. “Optimism has done me much good.” Then he digressed into beauty. “In childhood, seeing beauty is most formative to one's character.” The rest didn’t seem as important.
Three life-changing serendipities happened during that class:
Silverman’s reading list: Meaning of Life and Why it Matters by Susan Wolfe; Radical Hope by Jonathan Lear; The Republic by Plato. These seminars unknowingly paved my belief system in life.
That day when Silverman shushed those obnoxious pre-law boys in the class and turned to us: “The women in this room should never be quieter than the men.”
Finding you two.
Those were the days of presumptuous expression and dizzying search and life in the towers and corner-cutting problem-solving and maxing the dopamine rush by edging every deadline and circles of creativity and pandemic knitting, songwriting, cooking, forgetting to mute our inappropriate jokes during Zoom and ripping off our masks in the final semester, beaming because we’d survived it — we’d survived it all! We danced on grass and floors barefoot and with shoes and spilled drinks and walked down Summit in the snow past midnight laughing because two guy friends shorter than us vowed to be our bodyguards. We burned through our precious weekends and carried ibuprofen like skittles and disrupted the library with giggles and took a hell of a lot of wrong turns and ran late to class regularly and missed some deadlines but who cared didn’t Mitski say until death I can try again1 and panicked about all the panic attacks and kissed some strangers and read a lot of books and fell in love with the mess, the chaos, the soup of becoming. Adulting is a love-hate relationship, but in the end, we fell in love.
Those were the days of identity crises and overslept college kids in sweatpants and weekends starting Thursday and weekdays beginning on Sunday night and relishing all the freedom like we owned our lives and having zero clue about who we were until we caught a glimpse in our role models, in each other, in a faint possibility. That possibility turned into dreams, old and new, big and small. Some we did not finish, some involved making zero waste soap from store-bought soap so really we were just over-processing, some set a kitchen on fire but girl’s night carried on, some still haven’t crawled out of hiding, but some we never stopped chasing.
Those were the days before Mitski became mainstream. We loved Silverman even more when he told us that he had also seen her play on March 30, 2019. Was he moshing? Love to see it. One day Riya wore a Phoebe shirt to office hour and Silverman exclaimed — “boygenius is great taste!” That’s all the sugarcoat he needed before advising us that day — quit Law, take maths. No filler words in his vernacular. Philosophy is king, but if you don’t do it, at least learn the hardest skills. Learn to think for yourself. Learn to write. Learn to write beyond well.
Those were the days when Bury Me At Makeout Creek and Puberty 2 topped my chart. Thinking this was the kind of music that had music figured out; that had life figured out. Thinking “I better ace that interview / I should tell them I’m not afraid to die” is not teenage angst but prime character and American can-doness. “Wild women don’t get the blues,” thinking I’d also lose myself in a kind of love so gravitational that I’d run for it for the life of me.
I bought a card in Hanoi that said “grow up with me.” My hopeless romantic self has carried it and wished one day I could have the chance to give it to the one who would. But before he shows up, this card is and always will be about us.
We come into each other’s orbit to care, to have fun, and to heal the growing pain. When I watch movies about beautiful friendships (most recently, Sorry, Baby), I cry because that’s exactly how our friendship feels like. This letter is me immortalizing. Having moved around like a nomad since childhood, I never thought I’d find friendships that’d grow and move through life with me. When I see the world with you, I feel expanse. True friends are not afraid of each other’s sorrow or light, and you make me believe there’s not a star we can’t reach.
In August, after the Uber drove you away to Heathrow, I wrote you both a message:
I really feel like our friendship has turned into something that feels more like family to me this time you guys visited.
It’s exactly in moments where I felt a little frustration or miscommunication that I had these feelings: we all change, and conflicts will arise in every relationship, but it’s about realizing “wow this is a bit annoying but I still want to be here for you because I love you so much” and “I think you are a bit upset and I really want to make you feel better” that I think a friendship transcends into something that will last a long time. I hope our friendship lasts a lifetime because I want to be your mirror, and I want you to be mine to reflect our better selves even when we are not there yet.
Friendship is about being there for each other because we find qualities in the other person make us feel good and fun when we are together, but family means accepting all the imperfections and loving each other unconditionally.
I think some people go through so much with you, and you just love them like family. With most friends, we don’t get past the fun and lovely bits because it’s so hard to be vulnerable — not just showing you are hurting but letting someone bear witness of your fall and reaching for a hand because none of us could do this alone. Vulnerability is not storytelling in hindsight. It’s being there in the moment, soaking up all the uncertainty, yet still sticking together; fearing, anticipating, dreaming, or just waiting under the awning for the storm to pass. True friends are those you let in to figure life out with you.
I loved you then, and I love you still. Here is to a life of memories waiting to be made. Happy Friendsgiving, my loves.
Erica
a letter started on Nov 10 and finished on Nov 28
PS. Why do we only have weddings for romantic love? If there’s such wedding that bonds friends for life, I would have proposed a while ago — a perfect sunset, matching rings & bracelets, in laughter and in tears. Because I knew. In all those moments, I knew.
Note: This piece was written on Atlas
My Body is Made of Crushed Little Stars by Mitski
Tearing up because our friendship means so much too and am so grateful that we get to spend this lifetime together :)
Truly the most amazing trio out there 🤩❤️