I know.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
I’ve heard it.
I believe it.
But do I do it anyway?
She was just another girl in the dorms, friends with my friends.
We knew each other peripherally,
but we weren’t really friends.
A year later, I was living in another apartment complex, and she moved in next to me. Mutual friends lived downstairs so we ended up interacting. A lot.
Somehow we started to become actual friends.
We couldn’t have been more different.
Different values
priorities
views
looks
clothes
lives
everything.
We got to know each other
beyond
all the initial reactions
and responses.
That apartment complex was short-lived since I ended up moving away to go to school. I had no idea she had already applied to go to that same school, and a few months later, she moved there too.
In another strange twist of weird reality, we ended up as roommates. And we didn’t hate each other!
Through graduations
moron guys
broken relationships
questions about life
relocations
long distances
job changes
eventually marrying great guys
kids
surgeries
everyday life
tragedies…
we have been there for each other.
She has remained my friend
and has gained the right – and privilege
to call me out when I am an idiot.
I don’t usually think of myself as judgmental,
but maybe I can be.
Maybe I disregarded her as a friend
too early on.
Fifteen years after we originally passed by each other in those halls, she and I are still friends – the kind of friends who catch up in an instant, like no time ever passed in the first place.
I would have never pegged us as being friends in the first place, much less lifelong friends.
She was unexpected.
And I’m so grateful we both took the chance
to get to know each other
despite ourselves.