It is always surprising how much can change in a month. I think about my life only 30 days ago and it was completely different than the life I am living now and the circumstances I live under.
I am starting to realize that things are temporary; all things, no matter how big or how small. The world changes so fast, and people change with it. One day can be sweltering hot, and the next you can look out your window and see that that there is rain streaming down your window pane.
From October to November, I changed jobs, obtained probably the only incurable flu in all the world and unexpectedly had two of my roommates move out, one of whom was one of my best friends.
Now that the ground has been christened with the first rain of the season and things are getting colder again, it is easy to put things into perspective from a whole different season.
The summer was long and hard to bear. The condo in which I live is on the second floor and, considering the financial status of Mike, Melissa and I, three struggling college students, air conditioning was not an option. We spread cool sheets on the floor and sprawled out on them, dreaming of cooler days and rainy afternoons as the heat pounded in from all sides.
Oddly enough, things seemed harder then.
Melissa and I were eager to move out of our houses and live on our own, but we needed another roommate, so when Mike, the “dorky” guy from Miller’s Outpost needed a place to live, I was one of the first to say, “Sure!”
Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse. Mike and Melissa got together and became what many consider the most “in-love” and annoying couple to ever grace the face of the Earth. But Melissa was my friend, and despite the fact that Mike and I loathed each other from the beginning, we agreed to disagree for Melissa’s sake.
I think about those days and they seem so far away, though they are only a month gone. Perhaps the thing I regret most about the summer is that we all spent so much time working and worrying about money, that we never had the chance to completely enjoy our venture into the “real world.”
It was a hot day in early October when they told me they were leaving. The tension had only grown in the entire household and Melissa found herself caught in the middle. She was forced to make a choice between her best friend and her boyfriend, only because she forced herself to make this choice. Mike was the one she chose.
I often wonder why she and I are not still friends. I do not think anything is worth throwing friendship away for; not even the greatest guy in the world. I had often imagined us all bundled up in blankets, drinking hot chocolate, when the first rain of the season began, happy just being together weathering the storm. I thought the rain would take the tension away.
I have new roommates now, though the room that was once Melissa’s is still vacant. It is a big room right next to mine so I walk by there all the time and ignore the sadness of the bare walls. We try to keep the door shut for fear of being sucked in by the vastness and the emptiness. It is not always easy.
Already the nights are colder and it is fall again. The persistence of nature reminds us of the ever-changing world; nothing ever stays the same.
There is no tension left in our condo now. It seems that as soon as Mike left, he took the worst of it with him; unfortunately he took Melissa too.
My friends and I spend a lot of time in the living room now. We bundle up in blankets because it has gotten so much colder over this past month. Instead of being so unbearably hot, the condo has become much cozier; it is filled with the overwhelming feeling of warmth and community—the way it should be, I guess.
