About a year ago today.
A year ago, Amy packed up a U-Haul and moved to New Orleans. Her fiancé is doing his residency there. I met Amy almost ten years ago. We worked for the same company, except she was in the Detroit office and I was in Chicago. We had the same job, and so we worked together often even though she was not in Chicago. We became friends. When I left that company she moved to Chicago, and soon after that we became inseparable. I could tell you countless stories about the shit we went through in this city –the shit that we survived, and maybe I will one day, but this is a story about saying goodbye. Not to our friendship, of course, but to a period in our lives.
Amy and I used to be fun. We wouldn’t let a weekend go by without closing down a 5am bar. My friends think I’m lying when I say I didn’t realize 5am bars existed before I met Amy, but that’s the truth. She was the first of my friends that I came out to. Amy and I had this game we played, we would say we were going to stay in and have a “quiet” night, and hang with the dogs. Cause you know, we’re adults and can be responsible. That never happened (and once Four Loco happened… different story though). On one of those nights, I asked her if she wanted to go out for a nightcap… there was always a nightcap. Of course she said yes. We walked down to this gay bar, and we sat at the bar and ordered drinks as anxiety built within me. She looked at me, “Is this your way of telling me your gay?” She hit me, “You jackass, we could have been coming to fun gay bars this whole time?” She has always made me feel safe.
Amy moved to New Orleans the first week of January 2016. I was distraught. She was, and is, the light. I spent seven years dependent on her friendship. I was codependent on Amy. It wasn’t a bad codependent –it was more like a second opinion to make sure I wasn’t fucking things up codependent. If my life was a game show, ‘Regis, I would like to phone a friend.’ We balanced each other out... And most times we ended up ok, and the times we didn’t the other was there to do damage control. We had a system worked out –maybe it’s more like a survival plan.
Saying goodbye to her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. A year ago around this time I didn’t know how I would survive this city without her. I didn’t think I was capable. For over seven years she was always there, and in those seven years she helped shape me. I am who I am in large part because of her. I ran my first marathon because of Amy. I learned to be open and honest and real because of Amy. I became a better person because of Amy. She has always encouraged me to be better… she pushed me to be better when she felt I wasn’t giving enough. She has always supported me… no matter how crazy I was, while always making sure I was still being reasonable.
At the start of this year I felt lost. I felt abandoned. A year later I feel different. I think about all the shit we did. The things we went through together. The many nights it was just us sitting at a bar trying to figure out life, and what it all meant. I learned to appreciate what we had, and how fortunate we were to have each other for all those years. The type of friendship we have is rare. Family. I’ll be forever grateful for those years Amy and I got to spend being irresponsible. It was, for me at least, like college all over again, or maybe the second phase of college. This time though, we were the teachers and we taught each other. The lessons were not read from a book… they were experienced.
Over the course of this year I realized I was going to be ok. I still miss Amy daily. I wish I could I still text her, “this week has been awful… I’ll grab wine and come over,” “Can we go watch movies at the theater in our PJ’s?,” “Let’s just go to Jake’s for one.” Amy and I survived our twenties, and into our thirties, together, and I’m so thankful we had each other. The day she left we spent over ten hours packing up that U-Haul, as all the memories flooded through my head. We are one. As we packed the last of the apartment in the truck we walked through her apartment one last time, and we turned off the lights and walked out. We reached the end of the story.
Over time some of our stories will fade, and the details will become blurry, and I bet her and I will have contradictory opinions on what happened. To be honest we already do. That’s ok though, because at the end of it all… we’ll remember we laughed… a lot. Most of all, for all those years, in a city like this, we felt safe, and I hope I speak for both of us when I say we felt loved. We had each other. I get to see Amy in a week… we will sit at dinner with all our friends, and it’ll feel like it always felt. Safe and loved. See ya next week… babe…. xox