The Art of Picking Up Where We Left Off
January 22nd, 2025
Writer: Dianna Trujillo
Editor: Jackson Zuercher
A love letter to my friends from home
I have a pair of pink wool hand warmers that I bring out as soon as it starts getting cold. One of my best friends in the world bought a pair for each one of our friends, in colors that she felt matched our aesthetics best. It sometimes feels like we’ve known each other forever—we grew up in the same city, went to the same schools, and grew to understand each other greatly. It’s been a difficult transition from seeing each other every day to only a few times a year, but we’ve managed to adapt to this long-distance friendship.
Everyone always talks about falling in love—that beautiful feeling when you wake up one day and realize that you’ve found the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. Songs are written, movies are made, and so many of the most brilliant pieces of art are centered on this act of falling into love. The term is usually reserved for romantic relationships, because it seems like often we are trained to think that romance is the pinnacle of love—the one that trumps all, starts wars, moves mountains.
Ancient Greeks believed that there were six types of love, and I’m here to tell you that, although we might be conditioned to think that romantic love is the love through which we are truly fulfilled, we can also find equal fulfillment, and more, in platonic love.
I consider myself particularly lucky when it comes to my friendships—I like to say that I have been fortunate enough to somehow find myself in beautiful relationships that truly understand me and offer me unconditional love. Asking people for their contact information, or to get lunch or hang out never came naturally to me, because I’ve been fortunate enough that none of my friendships really had that awkward get-to-know-you phase. I’ve had the same roommate for all of college, and when people ask how we met, it’s always funny seeing their expressions when we tell them we started sending each other weird memes off the bat, because there was never really an awkward phase between us. My friends from home were the same—we met, we realized we were the same brand of oddball, and we’ve spoken pretty much every day since then.
I’d argue that platonic love has been the most impactful love in my formative years. I don’t know who I’d be without my friends, and I don’t know that I’d be where I am without them. I’ve learned an indefinite amount about myself through my friends. I’ve learned to see the world differently because of them. I don’t see my friends from home very often, but I talk to them every day and our love spans the whole country, from Penn to Berkeley and several places in between. They helped me through my first [failed] relationship, they sent me a care package when my dog passed away, and I know that even though we can only see each other sporadically, we will always meet in the same restaurant booth and pick up right where we left off when we see each other again.
Being able to come together so easily after spending so much time away from each other is one of the most beautiful things in life. I don’t have to worry about debriefing my friends because, even though we don’t see each other every day, they’re almost like an extension of my own self. They understand how I see the world, they support my goals no matter how crazy they know exactly how to be there for me, and they show me that true love is unconditional. They make me a better person. Romantic love can change your life dramatically, like a meteor hitting the earth, but platonic love is like a tree, growing and rooting itself deeper in your being every day.
One year when I left for Penn, my friends and I sat on my front step and cried in the most ridiculous group hug possible—my mom even snapped a picture of it through our doorbell camera. It felt like I was ripping myself into pieces that each one of my people was going to take with them. And as bittersweet as it was to leave them for the first time, I’m happy to report that every goodbye since then has gotten easier. We’ve learned that no matter the distance, the love we have for each other allows us to step right into each other's lives when we see each other again. Even if it’s the last time I see them for a few months, there’s no tears shed anymore—a simple “I’ll text you later” suffices. Because I know that our next reunion will be so easy, it will always feel as though no time has passed.
I don’t know if romantic love will ever bring that once-in-a-lifetime prince of a soulmate into my life, but I won’t hold my breath for it. I’m perfectly content with my four soulmates and their matching hand-warmers, who each carry a piece of myself and who have made me the person that I am today.
