Hey y’all. Today we have a bit of a different blog post. Wow. I know, you’re incredibly excited. During this past semester of school, I’ve found myself in a friend group that has become everything I’ve ever wanted. I know. So cliche. The thing is, I always felt like I was a bit different from everyone, and I always craved that friend group with people that really understood you for who you were. And now I have that and I couldn’t be more grateful. The love I have for my friends is indescribable, but I did attempt to describe it in these essays. 

I always thought if I posted my writing on my blog, it would be fiction. But alas, here we are, and I have two nonfiction essays for you. I wrote these about my friends in my creative nonfiction class I took this spring. My favorite professor taught it, and had some kind things to say about these essays so I figured I should share them. I was nervous to take this class, as creative nonfiction is something I’ve never done before. I guess my blog could count, but my blog content is different from what I’ve done in class. I really felt that my writing improved in this class and I’m excited to keep honing my craft. Eventually I’ll share some fiction or poetry, but for now, here’s these two essays. 

Note: I  gave them each an alias that I thought fit their vibe so they could remain cool and mysterious. 

Dear Aurora Borealis,

Dear Aurora Borealis,

Do you feel cool that you’ve been mentioned in a Taylor Swift song? Or is it a kind of overused analogy, and now everyone thinks of Taylor instead of you? 

I searched aurora borealis green

My friends and I saw you Friday night. We sat in a circle on the mossy gray carpet of my dorm room floor presenting slideshows we made. Our theme was “Friends as Songs,” though none of the song lyrics mention you. We spent hours compiling songs from our favorite singers, pasting lyrics into slides, psychoanalyzing each other on why each lyric reminded each other of our mutual love. 

Nova remembered you first, interrupting our presentations. “I’m so sorry to stop this but we have to go,” she said in that serious tone you only reserve for emergencies where someone gets in a car crash or falls victim to an arsonist. “The northern lights are going on right now on the north side of campus.” It’s a mad dash to see you. I struggle to tie my shoes, so Nova and Gray sprint out, while Clara and Mavis wait for me before we chase after you through a midnight-lit campus. 

Flying in a dream, stars by the pocketful

Panting in the dew-covered field is where we first see you. The slight green tinge crawling over the treetops. It’s surreal. I’ve only ever heard of you. Seen pictures and let the vowels of your name roll off my tongue while I imagined your gradient skies.  

But it’s comin’ down, no sound, it’s all around

The sky is dark, a kind of navy blue we’ve seen before so we start running again, sprinting now to get a larger view of the sky. We’re sprinting over concrete and fields of grass until we make it down to a wooded path leading to a creek. I don’t know if you watch a lot of movies, but at this moment, we’re living in one. Running through the dark woods, one foot in front of the other, trees and darkness fogged over and trees streamed past us, a fuzzy haze of pine needles and overgrown grass.  

This scene feels like what I once saw on a screen

We paused, tiptoeing over a patch of mud, balancing on a makeshift log bridge, before we’re running again, stopping in the middle of the field, Camas flowers billowing just slightly in the wind. We stand like a pack of wolves staring at the sky, in awe of your beauty. You were a bit distant that night, so we pulled out our phone cameras to reveal your bright purple, a shade eerily close to my own hair. In one image, I capture the backs of my friends, the four of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in silence as we stare at your star-sprinkled sky. 

I can’t speak afraid to jinx it

Here’s the second essay: 

a mostly platonic polycule appreciation essay

I’m starting to think I’m being lied to. And not like some sort of big gigantic lie like Santa or the American Dream. But I’m starting to think this idea of friendship and fitting in is made up. That everyone goes around feeling like everyone else fits in when in reality they don’t feel like they fit in. Because for years as a teenager I felt like I didn’t fit in. I did, of course. I did have friends. People I genuinely loved. And that’s the weird part. Because I felt like I should fit in. There were people who loved me and all that. 

But I felt like people didn’t get me. But it turns out everyone feels like that. And it’s this facade that everyone is pretending like they don’t unfit. I thought maybe it was something with me. That I was gay. That I was asexual. That I was a girl who didn’t live in a traditional girl way who wasn’t interested in sex or boys. I did my makeup in a way boys didn’t like and didn’t try to be friends with the popular kids. I played the violin and didn’t talk in class but that is all so incredibly typical. It’s cliche how I felt unfit. 

And then, get this, I go to college. And suddenly I fit in. Not suddenly. Just now. Just in these past few months. It took some time to get there. To meet people in classes and join clubs and dress how I want and be away from my twin sister and be forced to be myself because there was no one around to be except myself. 

I’ve been trying to write about my friends. The people whom I didn’t know for twenty years of my life, now see everyday. I’ve been trying to tell the story of them. The humor and the silliness and the impact they’ve had on my life in just the few short months we’ve been together because it’s the kind of friendship you know will turn into years. We will look back and won’t remember how we even met. 

We grocery shop together. Watch movies and make slime. Drink thorny birthday cake vodka before gay prom where I’ll wear rainbow gems on my eyes and chunky Doc Martens and my friends will dress like boys. And we will go to the beach. Make sand castles and go to hot yoga. Attend school concerts and clubs and make a shared Google calendar that is covered in colored boxes of time and more time and we call it evil because we should have no time to spend together but we somehow do. 

And I wonder how we found each other. How we’re so similar yet all have our own quirks. Is it because we are predominantly queer, and if we’re not, is it the queerness that our existence brings in being ourselves? There’s a kind of raw honesty in being yourself. And we are all so ourselves it is impossible to not be yourself when we are together. 

And if I could I would pick Clara and Gray and Mavis and Nova apart. I would take everything I love about them and just consume them. Let it rub off on me. If I was an evil scientist I would scoop out just a part of their brain on one of those tiny silver spoons people like to eat Yoplait yogurt with so I could have part of them in me. I’d take Clara’s drive. Her loyalty. I’d take Nova’s charisma and confidence. I’d scoop out a chunk of Mavis’s funny bone and take her intelligence too. I’d swallow Gray’s cool disposition and undisputed kindness. 

And then maybe I would look in the mirror and I would see myself the way I see them. I would see all their perfections and I would be so happy. So grateful that I got to know them and that intimate friend group you see in movies and read about in books would be true. It is true. It’s right in front of me and I can’t believe it. It’s too good to be true. And that’s so fucking cliche but that’s the thing about love. All of a sudden you have it and it’s just like everyone said it would be but better. 

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