My first year of college I met Ali. It has been eleven years since we moved into the dorm with two other girls we couldn’t have had less in common with. We didn’t know each other before school started and that made it so exciting. We had a four bedroom, two bath dorm room with a decent sized living area. Of course, Ali and I were on opposite sides of the suite, but that didn’t stop us from spending every waking minute together. Of our other two girls, one spent 23 of every 24 hours in her room and the other spent 23 of every 24 hours asleep. We had lots of time to ourselves and drove the other two crazy.
If you know me IRL then you know I’m loud and I never shut up. Well, so is Ali. One of my favorite memories is that although our doors were 20 feet from one another we would call each other and say, “Hey. What are you doing? Can you unlock your door so I can come in?” That always made me laugh. Ali got me through the first year of life on my own. She laughed at me when I wrecked my mom’s car in the driveway after our first liberated spring break. She danced with me into the wee hours of the night despite the fact that I have NO rhythm. She watched countless hours of Friends and Dawson’s Creek along my side and sang Wide Open Spaces at the top of her lungs while we rode around in Cricket. Wow, we had a good time.
If you read my blog at all, then you’ll know that Ali comments almost everyday. Despite the fact that we rarely see each other, we actually talk via email quite often. Yesterday the stars aligned and we managed to squeeze in a long lunch. Much to Ella’s delight, Ali suggested Chipotle and we ate lots of chips and salsa. It took Ella awhile to warm up, but she had a good time and Ali was so sweet with her. Thanks, Ali, for spending the morning with us, we’ll have to do it again in about 6 years!!
