Posts tagged friendship
So, You Joined a Sorority
So, You Joined a Sorority

Derby Days is the first convergence of Greek life on campus during the fall semester. It is your introduction to the Greek life competition, and it must be taken seriously. At dinner, some of the girls who will be participating in the lip sync competition tonight start to arrive. Someone tells you that they will be lip-syncing to some rap song. You can’t help but laugh because you can only imagine how funny it will be to watch a group of skinny white girl’s rap. You’ve just finished clearing your plate when you exit the kitchen and see something you’ve only ever seen in pictures. You see Sister S, in full blackface. Sister S is wearing baggy blue jeans, a wife-beater, an oversized button-down tied around her waist, a bandana wrapped around her head, and chunky skater sneakers. You don’t realize that you’ve been frozen staring at her until she comes up to you.

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True StoriesKristina Buschcollege, racism, friendship, sororityComment
If in the Convent You’d Found a Friend
If in the Convent You’d Found a Friend

Maybe you saw her serving champagne on a one-for-you, one-for-me basis at a big nun party, shooting corks for children to catch. Later, you’d bond that one summer week watching science fiction movies in the novitiate basement. You’d be thrilled when she came to live in your same convent. It would make sense, the life-sized poster of Spock in her bedroom, just down the hall from yours.

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True StoriesKristina Buschfriendship, religion, relationships Comments
A Stop at Ellicott City
A Stop at Ellicott City

On Monday, August 20th, 2012 at 11:54 p.m., a piece of rail snapped beneath an eighty-car train carrying 9,837 tons of coal as it passed over a bridge above Main Street in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Just a moment before the accident, Elizabeth Nass and Rose Mayr, two nineteen-year-old friends spending one last night of summer together before heading back to college, sat on that same bridge, dangling their legs over the edge.

Just a moment after, the train cars tipped over on their bodies, crushing them beneath piles of coal.

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True StoriesKristina Buschgrief, death, friendshipComment
The Middle House
The Middle House

At the age of thirteen, I attended a boarding school a continent away from my family, an experience that triggered a wrenching homesickness. As a teenager, I navigated international airports and transitioned between cultures with fluidity, yet a floodgate of tears would open at the echo of my parents’ voices over a long-distance call. They were a seven-hour flight away, too far to dash home for a weekend of hugs and home-cooked meals, distant enough for the cookies in care packages to grow stale before arrival.

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True StoriesGuest Userfamily, Friends, friendship, father daughterComment
1:37:00 A.M.
1:37:00 A.M.

God, or kismet, or intuition, or chance, wakes me up. My cell phone’s home screen lights up my bedroom. I reach for it. My news app notifies me that there is an ACTIVE SHOOTER targeting NED PEPPER’S BAR in the OREGON DISTRICT of DAYTON OHIO. The alert was originally sent fifteen minutes ago. I immediately dial Brianne’s number, one of three numbers I’ve committed to memory. I need to know if my friend is oh please I can’t even think it.

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True StoriesKristina Buschanxiety, friendship, active shooter Comments
Though I Have Seen My Head (Grown Slightly Bald)
Though I Have Seen My Head (Grown Slightly Bald)

I sat in Taylor’s chair in the high-ceilinged hair salon on Madison Avenue, watching all the wealthy Upper East Siders, as they rested their five-figure handbags on velvet stools like beloved pets. My newfound sense of mortality had no place in this land of excess. This was the room T.S. Eliot must have been referring to when he spoke about the “women [who] come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo.”

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True StoriesGuest Usercancer, self love, friendship, acceptance, Self Discovery Comment
Why Don’t You Repeat What I Just Said?
Why Don’t You Repeat What I Just Said?

“Can you please repeat what I just said?” Debbie asked. Her usual, wry smile I recognized so well said, “Why do you even try to fool me? I know you so well.”

“Oh…what…No, I am okay, I got you. I actually heard you,” I replied.

“No, you didn’t, and I know it. I absolutely do not mind repeating myself for the fourth time, Abha. And, if you really got me, why don’t you repeat what I just said? Repeat it,” Debbie said.

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True StoriesGuest Usergrief, disability, friendship, Self Discovery Comment
Girl Growing
Girl Growing

Elise is standing in front of her dresser mirror, a tangerine in one hand, a wad of Kleenex tissue in the other. Her dark-eyed reflection stares back at me beneath a fringe of stylish blond-brown bangs. In our fifth-grade class, Elise is a golden goose amid the rest of us awkward ducks, with her pert nose and movie star mole at the corner of her mouth.

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True StoriesGuest Userdeath, life and death, girlhood, friendshipComment
Coffee Dates that Could've Been: On Fierce Friendship in the Face of Loss
Coffee Dates that Could've Been: On Fierce Friendship in the Face of Loss

My favorite book by bell hooks is in my friend Kjersten’s house, I think. We’d spent a Friday afternoon in my kitchen with fellow mom friends, our circle’s version of Happy Hour, discussing love, grief, loss, and healing, our children tossing a football around outside. I mentioned my love for hooks and her writing on such topics, and Kjersten expressed interest. I told her hooks’ words changed how I approached my most meaningful relationships, helped me understand past communication breakdowns. hooks pushed me to embrace honesty and openness, to recognize love as a verb: “To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it's a decision, it's a judgement, it's a promise.”

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Guest Userdeath, life and death, book, friends, friendship Comments
Four Falls
Four Falls

A warm-hearted pack rat through and through, I knew she probably hadn’t donated the boxes in my former bedroom, nicknamed the hobbit hole. (Much like Paul was the Walrus, I am the Hobbit.) Crammed with what I kindly labeled childhood trauma — lighten the truth with a little humor, no? — the boxes held SAT prep books and enough plaid uniform skirts to choke not only the horse, but the whole Kentucky Derby.

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True StoriesJulia Nusbaumsuicide, friendship, relationships, mother daughter, Growing upComment