Excuse Me, Have You Seen My Good Friend Mrs. Grundy?
When Jenn and I met in the fall of 1998, many things were different:
I still believed I was going to marry B. (Hee.)
Jenn owned a Tickle-Me-Elmo.
I had a pair of black knee-high lace up boots that I wore with almost everything.
People were interested in what Monica Lewinsky had to say.
You couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing the Dave Matthews Band.
Mostly though, things were different because I hadn’t yet realised what an incredible person Jenn was, and how much my thoughts about life and what was important in it would change because of her. Avi may remember that I made fun of her in an email for putting up a makeshift Christmas tree in our dormroom. (I thought it was hokey, because at 19 I was apparently too cool for warmth, celebration and goodwill.) I was determined to spend my life surrounded by what was beautiful and intellectual, I believed that my role in the universe was to be selfish and smart, and I thought Jenn (who wanted to spend her life using her gifts to make the world a better place) was wasting her time. The world was going to hell in a handbasket anyway; better to read a good book on the way down.
What’s amazing about Jenn is that she played such a big part in changing that attitude without ever criticizing it. She let me tease her about volunteering all her time for good causes (Hey, Brandeis! Before Jenn there were no blue recycling bins!), and she never told me how ridiculous I sounded when I said things like “Be a Big Sister? Eh. Other people can do that stuff. My job is to read, write, and say smart things about literature.”
Okay, I may not actually have said those words — but seven years ago, I lived by them.
Jenn, there is no way I would be starting a job as a middle school teacher in six days if it wasn’t for you. There is no way I would be this thrilled about working with kids if it wasn’t for you. Thank you for being in my life. Enjoy South Africa, but come home soon. I miss you.
July 27th, 2004 at 2:45 pm
Tee hee, Jenn is silly.
July 27th, 2004 at 8:41 pm
I am glad and indebted to Jenn too for making such an impact in your life. Keep it up Jenn and now Meera, touch lives.
July 30th, 2004 at 5:03 pm
Yeah. Thank Jenn for being Jenn. But thank you too Meera for relating so elequently the way that people in our lives touch us. Those fancy writing skills of yours do come in handy;)
August 3rd, 2004 at 8:10 am
One of the BEST parts of living with M freshman year in college was PISSING her off when I would wake up at 8am on Sunday mornings to comb through trash in the name of recycling in the back of East dorm. Being trashy has never been as successful (or as much fun) since.
Tickle-me-elmo was only in vogue until our own descent into self-hilarity replaced it. Instead of being stressed about school (J), love (M), life, or school (J), we would instead laugh until the laughing gods could stand us no more, our sides sore and us gasping for breath until we exhausted each other to sleep.
Before I met M I used to take myself too seriously….well maybe things haven’t changed entirely that much. But instead of my volunteering being based on a superficial need to feel useful, it instead became motivated by a thing called love. Which is what I learned the most about from this silly little girl from Singapore.
with mucho amor from a wild land far, far away,
jenn