I have been working on a big project lately interviewing alumni for a particular school so I can help write letters enticing their classmates back to campus for their reunions. I've had conversations with this school's alumni from every five years, as early as the class of 2015 and as mature as 1956. What's funny timing for me is that I have my own college reunion this year, my 15th. After the last one I said I didn't want to go again--it was too expensive, I just wanted to see the people I see on a regular basis anyway, plus my feet hurt and it was too loud to talk (my feet really hurt and it was really loud.) But in the five years since the last one I have forged--or re-forged--relationships with people from school that I really would like to see, and I am going to wear comfortable shoes this time, and also I have 2 tiny children that I will use any excuse to get away from. But it's funny to talk to all these alumni from this one school that I didn't go to and delve deep into this alternate reality, this school that I have come to know pretty well that I didn't attend as an undergrad.

The last interview I did, the woman (class of '72) told me that she's still good friends with her freshman year roommate, and I told her that coincidentally, this weekend I'm going down to New Orleans to visit my freshman year roommate from Georgetown. We pretty much manage to see each other at least once or twice a year despite our ever-more-complicated lives. Similar to the lady I interviewed, I don't have many friends who are still tight with their freshman year roommates. My favorite part is that it took us awhile to discover our friendship. We weren't enemies by any means but we definitely came into school with our high school personae in tow then and slowly became friends, as we got to know each other and know ourselves, eventually becoming good friends, and then really important lifelong friends (I hope! Maybe this weekend she's finally going to tell me off).

I always wonder how we were paired. In our facebook, she listed "Hunting" and "Drill Team" as her two interests, to be funny, whereas I was sincere and said "creative writing and travel" (two hobbies I clearly never kept up.) Neither of us have sisters, so I appreciate the fact that after our time living together, we still to this day have a comfort around each other that I didn't get to have with many other females in my life. One of our favorite things to do in college was just take a nap in our respective twin beds at the same time (and then hit the snooze alarm for about two hours.) There was something very companionable about that, lazing the day away as the sun went down, having this cozy quality time without talking at all.

As I work on these letters I often think "I wish I loved my college as much as these people love theirs," but I guess mine had its good points. It let in some good people and at least one person working in the housing office wasn't a total idiot.