Holding the Universe Together

In a given week I get about thirty to forty emails from my three closest friends. We hit reply all, and spend any free moment we get sending small details from our day across the internet to all parts of philadelphia, the burbs, and cleveland. We rant about our jobs, tell stories, and offer advice about current problems. It's the only way we can manage our crazy schedules to maintain the strong bond we created a long time ago.

The concept of Liquid Nails was a joke born out of Amanda's drunken declaration that after our college graduation we would never see each other again, and Angie's calming logic that our friendship was the strongest force on earth, kind of like Liquid Nails. (We, also, cause neurological damage in california apparently.) Graduation happened, our lives really began and in our fits of life and email the three of us developed another strong bond with the one that really keeps us together (because emailing is what she does best).

Now we are four. We each have a different thing that connects us to each other. For Jess and I, it is our ability to talk for hours. For Angie and I, it's our desire for something greater in our lives, and our slight bitterness (let's be honest). For Amanda and I, it's so many things and so much history (after all, she and I were friends first).

I bring them up now, almost four years after our first drunken declaration of friendship, because of their uncanny ways of knowing what i need in my life. From the emails that keep me sane between classes, the phone message that tells me that i didn't, in fact, embarrass myself while I was out at the bar, or just the acceptance of me when I need that love and acceptance the most. Thinking about it now, they really do hold my universe together.

"I act like I have faith, and like that faith never ends, but I really just have friends."