Yesterday I sat at my computer and Gmail-chatted with one of my very best friends for a nice long talk. Caroline and I lived together for three of our four years at Longwood University. If you haven't read about me and Caroline and the legend that is 849, you can catch up here and then come back.

Ready?

I tried to remember the last time I had sat down to catch up with her for more than two minutes and honestly couldn't even remember it. I found myself pleasantly surprised every time we changed the subject. Neither of us had anywhere to go and we had time to actually catch each other up and make plans to see each other soon.

There was a time in our lives when we didn't even go three hours without speaking--most of the time when we did speak, it was face to face in our apartment. Text messages were exchanged constantly. Lunch together every day, dinner together every night, walking around campus together every afternoon. I had a friend with whom I was so inseparable, we'd go home and share half of an apartment together.

Where did that world go?

2006: Caroline and I at Hampden-Sydney. 

We made random freshman-year friends who lived 

in what ended up being Rob's junior year dorm room three years later. 

How's that for a coincidence?

There are times when I feel very adult. And then there are times when I am flooded with absolute panic at the thought of what "real life" must be like. It's exhausting sometimes, living life in this liminal space between undergrad years and a master's degree and, somewhere off in the distance, a career.

I have to say that while I miss the life of academia--of actually living in your studies, reading for countless hours, where your work was constantly guided and improved--I miss the life of 849 even more. I miss things like celebrating everything for any reason at all and nicknaming people we would never actually talk to.

Last month on New Year's Eve, Caroline texted me and said "I had a dream last night that we lived together with our boyfriends. It was weird but also kind of nice," to which I responded, only half-kidding, "That sounds like the dream."

Peter Pan bothers me as a character. Sometimes when I start thinking like this I'm reminded of him. He needs to grow up, you know? I'm not Peter Pan. I know I have to grow up. I think that's where the nostalgia comes from.

Hug your friends who live nearby. And call the ones who are further away. Do it today. 

Apparently we really can't all live, drink too much, and get naked in fountains together forever.

Sunday mornings are for coffee. And eggs.

They have always meant something. Years ago, Sundays were for family--for 11:30 mass and breakfast right after. They were for Catholic friends and parents and nice talks over hot mugs and scrambled eggs. Sundays were for an afternoon walk through Barnes & Noble and for you to peek your head into Ann Taylor LOFT, "just in case."

In college, Sunday was for being homesick. It was for disliking the church in your new town and slowly ceasing to show up there, and for calling your parents to catch up. There were still eggs and coffee, though, as you sat in the dining hall with your friends and ate and laughed. After your first year at school, your new Sunday became normal and you looked forward to that omelet and those potatoes and the never ending coffee with your beautiful roommates and some other people who would become your family away from home.

Then you graduated. Maybe you went back home for some time. You could have your original Sundays back--just reach out and take them--but you've changed. You might still go to church sometimes. You might still spend the day with your parents sometimes. You might go back to college to spend the weekend with your boyfriend sometimes, letting Sundays continue with friends and a dining hall. The Sundays have evolved, and life and your very self feel different.

Another year later, Sunday was for working. It was for serving coffee, but no eggs, to people from 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM and wishing you had time to write. It was for thinking about your thesis and dreaming of a job you would love. It was for being a little bit sad, and wishing to be spending the day with a book and your parents or roommates from college or your brother or boyfriend--anyone you love.

And now, just a few months later, that coffee shop has hired a new person and you have Sundays off again, and this time they are so that you can write. So you can tip-toe into the living room for an old Moleskine and actually put a pen to paper because people are asleep in the guest room where you keep your computer. Sundays are for reading and working on your dreams and deciding where to go later for eggs and coffee.

Sundays might be for missing your old life. Or they could be for figuring out your new one.

Some days, I just feel a little bit sad. I can't help it, and I don't always understand it. It creeps over me in a wistful haze and I can never pinpoint what exactly has caused me to feel so melancholy. So I drink tea and eat toast with butter on it and page through my favorite books and spend the day quietly. And even though feeling a bit down for no reason can be complicated, I love it. It's part of me and I have found that black, white, and grey are actually some of life's lovelier colors.