I could tell you something about my friend Susan, from high school, or my friend Jayne, from college, but instead I'm going to tell you something about Steph, from grad school. I met Steph toward the end of her undergraduate career, right after I'd started my M.A. program. I've always thought she was incredibly cool--she's one of those effortlessly hip people who exist entirely in a world of their own making. I'm still jealous of her ability to just sit back and let life happen. Whatever comes up, she deals with it and moves on as if that were always part of the plan.
Steph grew up in Kansas, which is where I met her, via our mutual friend Bruce. Later, she moved to Idaho--where I grew up--because both she and her husband were looking for jobs, and the university where I was working always needed adjunct faculty. About a year after that, I moved away from Idaho again, to work on my Ph.D. in Missouri. (Steph drove cross-country with me during that move, since I was traveling with an infant. She was my co-pilot/car nanny, and indispensable in both roles.) In the meantime, our friend Bruce had moved back home to the southwest, decided on a career in medicine, and gone to med school. Later, he accepted a job that brought him back to Kansas.
So now Steph lives in my hometown and occasionally checks in on my elderly parents. I live in the southwest, Bruce's old stomping grounds. And Bruce lives in northwestern Kansas, near the tiny town where Steph grew up. Steph tells me that there are days, even now, after 16 years of living in Boise, when she looks at the mountains and thinks "I live in Idaho." But, no doubt, those moments are followed by her realization that this is exactly as it should be.
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