hadn’t told such a whopper we probably never would have done the road trip to Little Rock, and it had been so much fun. Instead, I’d be fighting off the dark at my sister’s place. But I knew that something had shifted that night between me and my friends. We’d become closer on our adventure, and as I pulled away from them in my mother’s car, I could feel that I really belonged with them, and they really belonged with me.
I wouldn’t have the life I have today, think the thoughts I think, or be myself without them. I’d be pregnant in Arkansas, wondering how come all my babies didn’t take my queerness away. Jeri is still my soul mate, and Nathan is still the person who keeps upstaging me with his knowledge of music and culture. I think that, creatively, I keep him grounded, while he keeps my head in the air. Since Kathy was my first full-on girl-crush, that has lodged her in my heart forever. I do think my mom put a spell on me and brought these people into my life, because it feels predestined that I met them when I did.
15
As amazing as life got with my chosen family around me, it took a serious turn for the worse during my senior year of high school. Kathy, Nathan, and Jeri, all three of them older than me, were freed from school, and one by one they did the inevitable—they left Arkansas.
Kathy left first, to go to college. She was always motivated by school and learning, and she wanted to go to Evergreen, in Olympia, Washington. Olympia was home to Kill Rock Stars and Riot Grrrl and everything we worshipped. Evergreen was a state school, not a bourgie, fancy private university, but it was a financial struggle for Kathy to be there. Evergreen was radical and taught its students about politics and encouraged them to be activists and to use art to create social change. At Evergreen you learned about the political dimensions of everything. Your food was political. Your family’s economic state was political. Automobiles and gasoline were political. Trash was political. Evergreen was a revelation.
Kathy moved to Olympia by herself, during the longest rainy season they’d ever had. The year Kathy left sunny Arkansas, thePacific Northwest skies dumped rain for a record-breaking ninety consecutive days.
Kathy had always been the backbone of our group. She always had a job. Because she was a practical, methodical Virgo, and because of the way she grew up, she needed to work. It preserved her sanity. Nathan, Jeri, and I, we were like, Money, who cares? We’d scrounge or go without. But that attitude made Kathy anxious. She didn’t like not knowing where her rent money was coming from, so she took control of her finances.
Kathy and I had grown close in Arkansas. I missed her humor and the special bond we shared with Jeri. Then, about six months into missing her, Nathan and Jeri left. They moved into Kathy’s teensy Evergreen dorm room. With no cash, the three of them would make a cheap pack of ramen last for days, rationing it out noodle for noodle.
In phone calls and letters, Jeri and Nathan referred to Kathy’s overcrowded dorm room as “the Nest.” Apparently, the two boys were sleeping on the floor, in a pile of dirty clothes, like birds that had scraped together a bed from the detritus of the world around them. Jeri found a job doing telemarketing and brought home a paycheck, and Nathan—I don’t know how Nathan got by. He must have been getting some help from back home.
Kathy had bought Jeri his plane ticket to Seattle. Kathy always had food, even if it was just a packet of ramen; Kathy always had the rent, even if the house was nothing but a single room stuffed with dirty clothes for sleeping on.
I was a mess without my friends. Everything I’d been staving off, all that I had survived, whatever I hadn’t been paying attention to swelled together like a wave to topple and drown me. Without my friends, I felt stuffed back into the lonely part of life, a part I’d thought was gone, but here
I wouldn’t have the life I have today, think the thoughts I think, or be myself without them. I’d be pregnant in Arkansas, wondering how come all my babies didn’t take my queerness away. Jeri is still my soul mate, and Nathan is still the person who keeps upstaging me with his knowledge of music and culture. I think that, creatively, I keep him grounded, while he keeps my head in the air. Since Kathy was my first full-on girl-crush, that has lodged her in my heart forever. I do think my mom put a spell on me and brought these people into my life, because it feels predestined that I met them when I did.
15
As amazing as life got with my chosen family around me, it took a serious turn for the worse during my senior year of high school. Kathy, Nathan, and Jeri, all three of them older than me, were freed from school, and one by one they did the inevitable—they left Arkansas.
Kathy left first, to go to college. She was always motivated by school and learning, and she wanted to go to Evergreen, in Olympia, Washington. Olympia was home to Kill Rock Stars and Riot Grrrl and everything we worshipped. Evergreen was a state school, not a bourgie, fancy private university, but it was a financial struggle for Kathy to be there. Evergreen was radical and taught its students about politics and encouraged them to be activists and to use art to create social change. At Evergreen you learned about the political dimensions of everything. Your food was political. Your family’s economic state was political. Automobiles and gasoline were political. Trash was political. Evergreen was a revelation.
Kathy moved to Olympia by herself, during the longest rainy season they’d ever had. The year Kathy left sunny Arkansas, thePacific Northwest skies dumped rain for a record-breaking ninety consecutive days.
Kathy had always been the backbone of our group. She always had a job. Because she was a practical, methodical Virgo, and because of the way she grew up, she needed to work. It preserved her sanity. Nathan, Jeri, and I, we were like, Money, who cares? We’d scrounge or go without. But that attitude made Kathy anxious. She didn’t like not knowing where her rent money was coming from, so she took control of her finances.
Kathy and I had grown close in Arkansas. I missed her humor and the special bond we shared with Jeri. Then, about six months into missing her, Nathan and Jeri left. They moved into Kathy’s teensy Evergreen dorm room. With no cash, the three of them would make a cheap pack of ramen last for days, rationing it out noodle for noodle.
In phone calls and letters, Jeri and Nathan referred to Kathy’s overcrowded dorm room as “the Nest.” Apparently, the two boys were sleeping on the floor, in a pile of dirty clothes, like birds that had scraped together a bed from the detritus of the world around them. Jeri found a job doing telemarketing and brought home a paycheck, and Nathan—I don’t know how Nathan got by. He must have been getting some help from back home.
Kathy had bought Jeri his plane ticket to Seattle. Kathy always had food, even if it was just a packet of ramen; Kathy always had the rent, even if the house was nothing but a single room stuffed with dirty clothes for sleeping on.
I was a mess without my friends. Everything I’d been staving off, all that I had survived, whatever I hadn’t been paying attention to swelled together like a wave to topple and drown me. Without my friends, I felt stuffed back into the lonely part of life, a part I’d thought was gone, but here
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