I made some bad cookies, but I made a great friend
People do really show up in your life right on time
“I hear you’re looking for some eggs.”
The quiet-cool girl said to me after our student magazine meeting. I wanted to bake cookies in my dorm’s shared kitchen for my gender studies class (why that class?!? Come on Emily). Eggs were not readily available in the campus convenience stores, outside of the hard boiled variety.
We hopped into her little red car, or Lil Red, which suited her perfectly: compact, reasonable, and the kind of car your chic older cousin drives. Most of what I remember up to that point is that she’d chuckle at my jokes during staff meetings—a validation that made me double down on my bad humor. She remembers thinking I was funny when I explained how I’d wrap myself in blankets and tell my boyfriend I was a burrito.
I wish it could have been something objectively funnier, but here we are.
We drove to the off-campus Kroger, where we snatched up some eggs and swung by the baking aisle to get her some funfetti cake mix (so cool). We laughed the whole time, over things I don’t recall, and when I got the two eggs I needed, she insisted on paying for, and taking the rest of the dozen. She had an apartment, and therefore, kitchen supplies. Again—who is that cool??
Here’s the thing: mere weeks before this, I tried to cloak my sadness in a phone call with my mom about my college loneliness. I had my boyfriend, I had my high school BFF, I had my mom—“Isn’t that enough?” she asked. I knew, in my gut, that it wasn’t. I felt greedy.
Then BAM, out of nowhere, my newest BFF was driving me to the store to get some eggs, right when I needed her most.
And it changed my life.
Happy birthday, girlbuddy!
Next Steps: Drink a glass of water, and (of course) text your friend happy birthday and call her on the phone incessantly, and reminisce about literally any of the times you’ve had. Too many times to count.