Evelyn

I was at Melissa's blog yesterday, she has a very cool family activity with photos and garland. Then I saw she had a whitepages something or other link you can use to find people. I immediately had to use it so I put my first roommate from college's name in there and guess what? I found her. Evelyn. My first ever roommate.

I was a dumb transfer student coming in and she was a senior in her last year going out. Remember I grew up in a small town in Texas population 400. She was a Houston debutante. Of course I'm all sophisticated and well spoken now, but there was a time when calling me a bumpkin would have been a compliment.I don't know how she could stand me but she did.

Evelyn was smart and beautiful and, most of all, stylish. She had style while the rest of us were stuck in the trends of the eighties. I wanted to look like her, dress like her; even just sitting near her was enough. No, we weren't very much alike but somehow we became friends anyway. We had a lot of fun that year. One of her friends even warned me that "Evelyn does not like room mates". She could be very kick ass when she needed to be. She could put someone in their place without ever demeaning herself. She should have ripped me to shreds but she didn't.

In short, I loved that girl.(in a totally non gay way, Dan!) She kind of took me under her wing and dragged me along with her. I needed a lot of dragging.

You may have guessed that things didn't end well. Towards the end of the school year Evelyn and I starting bickering over little, stupid things. If I had been mature enough to look outside myself I would have seen that Evelyn was anxious about getting a job, getting married, just getting a life in general.

Our last fight was a good one. I have no idea how it started or ended. I do know at one point during our screaming she threw a hard plastic cup at my head and it bounced off like I was rubber girl. I was so furious I didn't even feel it. And then: I pushed her into the sink.
Not our finest hour but at least we didn't scratch or pull each other's hair.

She graduated, I had my summer at home. The End. Not quite. One day Evelyn showed up and once again we were giggling roommates. She didn't just run off into the sunset like I might have done, she came to drag me along like always.
She lived in the area and we saw each other on the weekends and had adventures just the same.

Eventually she moved back to Houston, I moved home and began my first year of teaching. We wrote letters until one day I just didn't write back. I have no idea why, I guess we were just going our separate ways.

So see it wasn't a bad ending really, just the way things go in life. Only now I have her address and her mother's phone number. I don't know if I should call her, send her a postcard, or just look through college photos and do nothing.

I wish she were here to drag me along.