It Is Trish

Chrisette woke me up this morning at 7:00 so I could enjoy a three-course breakfast with everyone before they left for school/work.  It was absolutely delicious, and it felt really normal and not all that sad to hug Anju and Ketan goodbye.  Maybe because I knew I would get to see them in just five months, when we all get to hang out in Athens!

As I was making trips to pack up my car, I accidentally locked myself out of the house.  I had to call Chrisette, who had left for work five minutes earlier, and she graciously returned, saying, “I always knew you were one of my children,” as I neurotically said, “thank you thank you thank you.”  We’re family now, I think.

And then I drove for ten hours!  My cold has gotten much better, and although ten hours was a little TOO long, I did enjoy hitting the road again.  

I stopped for the night just outside St. Louis to stay with Erin and Tim Messer.  The three of us met during a mission trip to Turkey, after which Erin and I roomed together for a year, and then Erin and Tim got married (the picture above is from their wedding…obviously).  We haven’t really hung out in years, but we quickly fell back into comfortably joking about uncomfortable topics when Tim pointed out the glass on the end table.

“The nipple cup!” I cried.  “Oh my gosh!  I totally forgot–wait, WHY did you put your nipple in the cup?”

“It was your idea,” Tim said, and I quickly assured him it wasn’t.

“No, you came back to the apartment one day to tell us about how women can unblock their nipples while breastfeeding by sticking a match in a cup and making it suction out the blockage.  So….I got curious.”

“And did it work?” Erin asked.

“Well, I wasn’t blocked,” Tim said.

“Did you start lactating?” I asked.

“NO.  But I did wait until you started drinking out of the glass before I told you that it was the one I’d stuck my nipple in.”

I shrieked and jumped around, reliving the horror of my recalled memory.

This is pretty indicative of our conversations throughout the night, which is also indicative of our conversations at college.  I was taking Gender and Sexuality at the time, and I delighted in teaching Tim about periods and tampons.  When I mentioned that tonight, he said, “I don’t blush as much anymore.”  He’s all grown up.

Of course, then we all shared memories of our Turkish trip and the infamous poop brush, and then I’m pretty sure I was blushing.  We all have our limits.

This was the tiniest of visits, but it was nice to reconnect.  It was bizarre to see decorations from our college apartment in their married apartment (including a dangerous chair that Jennie and Dusty gave to me which I gave to them), but also a nice reminder that we shared a pretty significant part of our lives with each other.  Because of that, we can have fun together, no matter how long the separation.