"I SAID" 06: try to remember it all

I love love and I love my people 💘

Nov 18, 2024

Take a deep breath and look around at all the people that love you.

I knew I’d cry at my best friend’s wedding. It wasn’t really a question of “will I,” it was more a debate of “how much is too much?”

This was Gracyn’s wedding, my first foray into being a bridesmaid, a wedding for the history books. Standing up there, I couldn’t help but think about how it feels like I’ve known Gracyn longer than I haven’t. We’re not quite at that point yet, but after surviving four years of college, three of those as roommates, fourteen plus weekend trips abroad and almost five years of post-grad friendship, I can’t remember my life before I knew her.

We met on the eighth floor of the Sadler Residence Hall at Syracuse University. I wrote her off as someone I’d never be friends with, she was very quiet and her room was incredibly well decorated, two things that were (are) not true about me. Obviously, I assumed this meant she would hate me, as nervous eighteen year olds do. So I resigned to trying to befriend her roommate. We did our own things for a while, but because it was meant to be, the two of us came to our senses and agreed we were the natural duo out of that trio.

College would not have been the same without Gracyn. I relied on her for a lot, she was my person - the girl literally rewatched ten seasons of Grey’s Anatomy with me because I’d never seen it and couldn’t bear to binge it by myself. Sophomore year, I had broken my phone and had made ridiculous plans to meet a guy that I had a crush on. She stayed up incredibly late to make sure I made it back to our dorm alive. Junior year, she drove with me to an urgent care miles away from campus on one particularly awful occasion and sat in the waiting room for about two hours while I was treated for a disease I did not even have.

Spring semester, we lived together in London. Every day, Gracyn would make me and our other roommate pose for her “one second” a day video that eventually was edited into a highlight reel of our time abroad. I initially hated this. “Put your phone away!! Let’s REMEMBER THESE MOMENTS WITHOUT SCREENS,” trying to preach the mantra of presence. But eventually, I embraced the one second moments when I realized how badly I DID want to have these memories on screens. She was right. We traveled and partied and just had the overall time of our lives together and I will never forget those 5 months as long as I live and I’m so lucky I have a visual aid to remember those moments. Thanks to Gracyn.

When we got back to campus, we were old enough to know we didn’t need to make any more friends. We’d skip the same frat parties we’d gone to 100 times over and just hang out all night. Sometimes we’d fall asleep on the matching magenta couches our apartment was randomly already furnished with when we moved in. When we did decide to go out and drink, we’d stand in the corner and only talk to each other.

When we pushed it too far, we’d hit the Movie Tavern and sit in silence when we were too hungover to speak. We listened to the same 20 songs over and over again in our two-bedroom apartment on S Crouse Avenue because neither of our type-a personalities could fathom living in an off-campus house with five other girls. One time, I forced her into throwing a Super Bowl viewing party and she made enough fried pickles for 20 people.

I knew Gracyn as just Gracyn before I knew her with her boyfriend. They met in high school, so I didn’t meet him till much later in that year when he came to visit. When we did finally hang out, I immediately knew they’d be together forever. It was not a question. They loved each other. You could just tell. Gracyn is so sure of herself. She knows what she wants for dinner at breakfast. She is so confident in her decisions, she never wavers. I am jealous of this ability she carries, so sure of what she likes and who she needs in her life and it’s because of this that I knew she’d marry Ryan. There were probably times she saw more of me and less of him than she would have liked, but in spite of the distance and the general complications college relationships can bring, they made it work.

Even after school, she was right there with me. Always on the same page, we’d lament the end of our senior year and like the duo we were, we’d cry on cue at the same time of the day. Usually at 5PM, right around happy hour. When I fell into a pretty deep depression, she came to see me in Larchmont. She sent me a Christmas gift full of pictures from better times. We went to California and she watched me from the beach when I finally jumped back in the ocean after months of agonizing over it. When Syracuse welcomed us back for our makeup graduation in 2021, we cried together in the hotel bed by the Destiny Mall over how shitty everything felt.

She’s probably one of the most loyal people I’ve ever known in my life, one of the few people I feel like I can be my true authentic self around. Zero edits. Do you know how rare that is? The friendship I formed with her was definitely not immediate, but it was necessary. At least for me.

So when she asked me to be in her wedding, it was a no brainer.

The best part about knowing Gracyn is getting to know the other people in her life. Ryan, her family, her friends from high school and the whole lot. When you meet people in college, you don’t know their origin story, you don’t find out everything right away. It’s kind of the best part of adult friendships. Everyone peels back their own layers on their own terms, when they feel like it. Sometimes you’ll hear some piece of gossip from high school that is so incredibly unlike the adult you’ve grown to know and love. It’s unreal. I’ve been friends with Gracyn since 2016 and I learned more and more about her on her bachelorette party, at the bridal shower, at the rehearsal dinner, in her dad’s speech at the wedding (all-time speech, btw.)

Watching your friend get married is insane. It’s beautiful, it’s emotional, it’s stressful! Sometimes I can’t believe we’re where we are, getting older and getting married, growing into real people. But watching the planning turn into the day of formed some of the most special moments I think I’ve ever spent with Gracyn. And we’ve been through a lot. I think we’re even closer now. But she has no idea I’m writing this so maybe she’ll read it and have her own thoughts. Gracyn, if you feel so inclined. ⬇️

"I SAID" 06: try to remember it all

I love love and I love my people 💘

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