Notes

Dear FutureMe,

I'm really dragging my feet and procrastinating writing this letter. I got a reminder in my inbox from FutureMe to write a letter, and I haven't done it in ages. Something about doing this feels so momentous and so final, and I haven't quite internalized that I'm graduating from college in 8 days.

I don't even know where to begin. I've had the sweetest last few years in Providence. I'm in the living room on Governor street looking around, and I see the plants I've nurtured since my Keeney dorm room, the dozens of Target birds overflowing the mantle, Kyoko's graduation announcement card with a picture of her in a tree, a pile of New Yorker magazines almost a foot high, and the birch bark mural that my friends made with me when we rearranged my room after Ilan broke up with me.

Maybe I'll do a little recap of the different parts of my life and what I'm thinking about with respect to them now, to make up for four years worth of letters that I haven't sent.

Friendships
I wish I had become friends with Meg earlier! I can't believe that when we were in Tran Tran freshman year I thought that they were just a normal boring Boston girl and wrote them off. The other day Kyoko yawned, and Meg screamed into her mouth and I was like this - this is my person!! They get me!
Speaking of Kyoko, I'm so glad that she's been by my side these past four years and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her all the way in Burlington. I'm really excited to visit her in Roanoke this summer, and potentially to hang out with her during my day off at Timberlock! I'm sad that the Addison county fair is earlier in the summer, because I would kill to go to a demo derby with Kyoko.
Susan - I really love the time we've spent together especially this year, random late night talks and hangouts and just getting to know each other better. They're such a joyful person and even if we don't see each other all the time in the future, any effort they make to stay in touch I know will be super super genuine and I'm really excited to see what they get up to.
Stuff has been on and off with Hannah, always intense, for better or for worse! I feel super at peace with the fact that we're not going to live together next year, because then I feel like we can enjoy each other's company more. She's so sweet and I'm so excited for her to get her PhD at MIT. Wow, that's crazy that I'm an age where my friends are going to get PhDs. Anyways, Hannah's loving touchy-feely presence is everything I ever wanted and more, and it's been such a delight to see her come out of her shell over the past two years.
I love Robby freaking Bush to the moon and fucking back. I've never met anyone so kind and so generous. I'm so glad that I got to take him on a gondola ride with me. He's kind of had a rough go of it recently, and all I want for him for the future is to see him thriving and happy.
Glennie has been such a fun friend to have the past few years! I'm so glad we met on BOLT. She's my #1 swim buddy, and I just love having a little chat with her. I'm excited to get into the woods with her again this summer.
Mpumi - she was not a great friend for a while and we had a bit of a friend break up, but now we're amicable and it's nice to have her smiley presence vaguely in my life without expecting too much of her as a friend.
Speaking of friend breakups, I kind of cut Jane Leff out of my life because I was exhausted being her friend and feeling like I owed her my time when she was never a thoughtful friend to me. I honestly don't feel like I'm missing much except for the exasperation and stress of picking up the phone to talk to her knowing that she'll just complain for thirty minutes straight.
Sammy has become a close friend of mine, and it's even better now that I'm confident that she has other close friends at college! For a while it felt kind of dicey because it makes me nervous when I'm someone's #1 person when it isn't reciprocated, but now I know that she has a good support network. I'm excited to spend time with her this summer and maybe get to meet some of her Whitman friends.
Serena is a darling and I have endless endless love for her. She's been pretty hard to get ahold of during college in general, but every time we reconnect it's like no time has passed! It was fun to visit her in Philly for her birthday, I'm sooo excited to travel with her in Europe this summer, and I hope she comes to Nantucket for a few days.

Relationships/Romantic/Sex life
Well, I had a really nice, mellow, loving, caring relationship with Ilan for over two years. I learned a lot from him. I learned what it's like to deeply connect with someone and share interests and time. I still miss being able to talk to him about physics stuff. I learned how to chill out a little bit and take life slower, whether it's meditating or listening to music or gardening or walking a puppy. He's very very sweet. Our relationship was so easy until at some point it got hard, and I'm not really sure what to make of it. I guess it had to end sometime if it was getting hard where hard is no longer worth it. I really did think that we might grow old together, so it was a shock to have it end so suddenly. The things I don't miss: being sucked into his question-everything emotional whirlpools, being told that it's okay to be sad and in the same breath being threatened with a breakup for being "too emotional," having sex where I could never relax because I wasn't convinced that he genuinely wanted to be touching me or going down on me, being tense every time we were in a group setting because he always had some problem with the way we were together in a group. There weren't a lot of things that I was unhappy about with our relationship, but now that it's over I do feel a sense of relief that I'm not dealing with this anymore. I do miss him, and I miss his family, especially Liane. I'm really glad that I reached out to text her.