As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

This post is actually a celebration of ALL my college roommates: Stacy, Varonica, Ingrid, Sarah and Robyn. (And you, too, Jake, because you were like a half roommate.) Without them, I would still be a royal pain in the ass to live with.

Robyn was my first chosen roommate in college. We got an apartment together our sophomore year and promptly set up house, by which I mean we repainted yard sale furniture and slid the ski ball machine against the south-facing wall. While we ditched the arcade games after year one, we continued to live together through the first half of my senior year, at which point the Rubsters graduated early.

(Robyn and Me, 1999)

To have spent time with Robyn and me in college would have been to overindulge in homemade salsa, laugh more than a little too loudly and address questions about the meaning of life and art.

But this longstanding friendship that so closely bore witness to the evolution from adolescent to adult might best be glimpsed in a recent facebook exchange. I posted a photo to which Robyn commented that it reminded her of one of our apartments.

I responded, “Yeah, but I’m nicer now.”

She followed up with, “Well, I say what I mean now.”

I am not sure who I would be without my college roommates. I am certainly not sure who I would be without Robyn for she is one of the most significant people in my life from the last 10 years.

And so I celebrate that we were thrown into the same freshman orientation group. And that she has forgiven me for behaving like a 19 year old when I was 19 years old. And that I can pick up the phone or train to NY and be certain I will have the opportunity to laugh late into the night.

Tags: celebration, change, communication

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 9:20 am and is filed under celebration, change, communication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.