Dear Dublin City and Friends,
As I sit at home in 34° Celsius heat, with haze and humidity rolling over the mountains of Northern New Jersey, a piece of me wishes to be stuck inside on a rainy, grey, and blustery Dublin day. Mostly because a) sweating really doesn’t suit me, and b) let’s be honest, no matter how sunny it is here I’m never getting a tan quite like that from my bottle of Coco Brown.
And, if I’m being even more honest, an even bigger piece of me misses being in the constant company of my college friends in Ireland.
Home friends have become summertime friends, running busy with part-time work schedules and unpaid internships, leaving little time to catch up on a year of experiences with an old high school lunch table buddy. They understand old characteristics of me, and expect me to understand new characteristics of them. It’s a strange mix, that needs a summer of reconnecting to stir together again.
Meanwhile, you, my college friends, have become my fulltime mates. You are people that have watched me lose my marbles on a Thursday night out, and equally lose my sanity in the 24-hour library pre-exam Tuesday evening. For 9 months out of the year, I spend nearly every waking moment with you, and suddenly for 12 weeks I have to fumble my way through summer without you.
The summertime is our time apart where we all traverse the globe on our own experiential adventures. Thailand, Vancouver, Greece, and New York- Dublin has stretched itself to places near and far, looking for stories to share when we reconnect in September. And for those of you staying in Ireland, you get to enjoy the comforts of home, like me, and rejuvenate your body after a long college year of poor decisions.
While we may Snapchat or throw each other a like on Instagram, this physical time away is what will make coming back to Dublin for a new college year that much more exciting. The summertime is our time to grow apart. It is our time to create memories without each other. And it is our time to further come to terms with the fact that our short-time running amok in university is quickly ending.
To all of my college mates, just because I’m not popping up in your messages every day asking for a lunch date, plans for tonight, or searching for solutions to problem sets does not mean I haven’t forgotten about our friendship. Come September, I can’t wait to share 3 month’s-worth of adventures and stories, pick up where we left off, and stumble through another year of college together.
Yours Truly,
A Friend Far Away
