Chris and I went to the Moxie again tonight on an impromptu date. Our week has been so incredibly stressful, and we’ve hardly seen one another, so a date was overdue. We watched “My Best Friend,” a French comedy about an art dealer who realizes he has no friends, bets his business partner that he can produce his best friend in exchange for a Grecian vase, and learns how to be a friend from a taxi driver. An excellent film. I highly recommend it!
On the way home, Chris and I started joking about the “three S’s” of being a friend: sociable, smiling, and sincere. And then we started talking about friends, specifically Linden, and how she’ll be hard to replace when she moves to Germany in 14 days. You see, I’m fiercely loyal to my friends, but making friends doesn’t come easy for me. It takes me about six months of keeping an eye on people “I should get to know” before I allow myself to open up and let the friendship really blossom.
With Linden, we hit it off pretty quickly. She registered Chris and I for our wedding at Bed Bath & Beyond, we shared an office in the English Department, we started running together, we had fun talks on our runs (I knew she was a keeper when she didn’t judge me for my zit-popping point system), and we had a web development class together (I didn’t realize until then just how nerdy we were—and it compounded when we were together).
I’m really sad that she’s leaving. By the time Chris and I got home tonight, I was crying because I knew that she’d be impossible to replace. It’s not just about the running, though I’m a little afraid I won’t finish my training with as much gusto as I would with her running with me. I’m afraid I won’t find another running buddy that’s half as great as she is.
But we’re friends off the trail, too. Who else loves Google as much as I do? Who else let’s me ramble on about this blog and my ideas for it as much as she does? Who else gets half as excited about Harry Potter-themed movie nights as me? Who else can appreciate the idiosyncrasies of my cat as she does?
Linden sent me this Marcel Proust quote a while back: “Let us be grateful to people who make us happy: They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” I am so grateful for Linden and her never-ending friendship. She has truly made my soul bloom over the last two years, and I’ll never forget that. Even though I have to give her up State-side, I know that she will bless everyone she meets in Germany, and I trust that she’ll garden many souls there.
P.S. I feel like that last paragraph was sweet and profound, so I’ll ruin it with this: Stupid Germans! You ruin everything!
P.S.2. Linden, I don’t think Rob is stupid and I don’t know that he’s ever ruined anything.
