I sat across from Tricia, as the plates of eggplant in garlic sauce, egg tofu, hand-shredded chicken and a bowl of hot and sour soup were served. It had been a rough day: not that anything had happened, but just simply feeling extremely jetlagged and feeling very helpless about doing anything to make it go away. The excitement of returning back to Chicago had started to diminish, and all that was left was the fear of the struggles and how difficult last semester was repeating itself again.

I had slept four hours of the afternoon away, dragged myself to the gym in an attempt to at least feel like I had physically accomplished something or to redeem myself for the fact that I had not been good about keeping up the sleep routine, and now had probably ordered way too much food and did not feel like the best company. Days like these had happened one too many times last semester, and the feeling of triumph and anticipation of this semester definitely being  better than the last seemed to weaken, as the all too familiar ‘cloud of doom’ found a comfy place just perfectly above my being.

We didn’t talk about a lot of things. We didn’t really need to, after being roommates for a year, and friends for about a year and a half now, we knew a lot about each other. But the things we talked about, mattered I think: about how we felt going into the semester, where we were spiritually, exercise routines and gymming (haha we all want nice bodies ya).

It felt nice, to sit across from someone who knows me so well – seen the best of me, and the worst of me, yet has never judged me, nor condemned, but always held me when I needed to be held, corrected me when I needed to be corrected, let me be when I needed to be alone. It’s not that we didn’t have conflicts, but we always knew each other well enough to work through them and let them go and move on still walking alongside one another. Perhaps, we’d each fallen short from time to time, but we’d always catch back up.

I don’t think there was any big change walking out of the restaurant: I was still jetlagged (it really felt like 2pm in the afternoon when it was all dark and quiet out), still apprehensive about the semester, still wanting to be home. However, sitting on the train holding my to-go box of hot and sour soup, there was a quiet peace and reassurance of some sort of constancy in the midst of change, and new things and a new semester.