"It's not about the...

It's about connections!"

I was looking at my very last post, around 18 months ago. It was one of the last few times I hung out with my best friend, and it was so long ago. After I left Brown, I learned how the abundant human connections that exist in college are more fleeting in the "real world". At college, I could walk into a stranger's open room and talk about the deepest philosophical issues just after I said "hi, I'm Jahi".

After I graduated, my Master's year made me feel like a ghost in the place where my old life was. The environment was the same, the old people were all gone. Then Georgia... six months after I got there I started to meet new people, a year after that I was gone, some people to not see again for a long time.

Now back to New England. The environment is familiar but the old faces are still gone. The best friend who I last blogged about won't be the same short drive away in a matter of months.

And the 5-year reunion is coming up. What will that be? A reconnection or a reminder of lost connections? The thing about college's fleeting, abundant connections is that it can't really be maintained in the real world... a few conversations in with some people can reveal what would become the "sticking points" if you stayed connected for longer: this one's a homophobe, that one's a little crazy, whatever it is, the instant human connectivity in college is where it is, and the post-college world is another story. Well, Brown will bring some of us back, and we'll see what happens.

And today, Happy Hour.

A very observant coworker realized that we needed to connect with each other outside the increasing stress of work. So we're 5 weeks into a recurring Thursday Happy Hour. It's nice, it does make us all feel a little better. 11 pm and I'm just getting back, can't be all that bad.

And a friend who left work before she could say goodbye to everyone got to see the people she couldn't because of Happy Hour. I wouldn't have said friend before the last week or so, but here's the thing: while college may make people feel more personally connected than they really are, a "job" environment does the opposite. Mostly, that sucks. But in this case, it's nice to find someone who you can call a friend you didn't know you had.

And I have a connection that I made for life. It's been a little while since I gave her the ring to tell her what we already knew. And soon, we can tell everyone else what they already know when we get married. But let me say out loud, Medical Internship is a reaaaaaaal bitch. I miss her, even when she's around, because she's so neck-deep in what she's doing. At the same time that I wish she didn't have to go through what she did, I wish I could be that dedicated to my work... or that I could be going through what she is with her.

Sooner or later, she'll have more time. I'll see her more than I do now, and we can spend more time with each other. I hope that when I make connections with people in the future, I'll remember what it feels like to lack connection.