Meet Mallory.

[circa May 2009]

Stats:
22.
Lexington, MA to the streets of Taiwan and back.
Fights obesity in America.
4 years & counting.


Story:
I met Mallory my freshman year of college at Oyama in the East Village. Though we discovered that we lived only a few floors apart in the same tower of the same dorm and started bumping into each other at least 2 to 3 times a week, it took her nearly two months before remembering anything about me. And once she started remembering me, it was not for the best. We got off to a very rocky start due to some...misconceptions about one another. Eventually, we got to know each other better and were able to move past our judgments.

Still, there was a moment in the middle of our freshman year that I clearly remember. During a lunch with a friend in Upstein, I confided that while I hung out with Mallory a lot & certainly had no qualms with her anymore, I could not see us ever becoming very close friends and that I doubted our friendship would last very long.

Four years later, I humbly and gladly say that I was very wrong.

Mallory and I are very different people with different interests & views, but there are few people in this world that I feel as comfortable around as I do with her. She's incredibly forgetful, oftentimes crazy, & undoubtedly odd, but those are some of the qualities I've grown to really appreciate in her; they make her Mallory to me. Even more importantly, she's taught me what accountability & a loving friendship looks like; has been open & honest with me; is hilarious -- really hilarious; always shows great passion in what she does, especially within her spiritual life; is far more humble than I am; cares genuinely about those around her and therefore challenges me to care more about those around me; & often acts as my voice of reason (don't be so surprised -- she's not always a "confused goldfish"!).

For all those reasons & more, I have to say that she's become one of my best friends. We have our ups & downs but in the end, I absolutely love her.

Candles.

[Photo by Kim Anderson]

Last night after visiting a friend's new & gorgeous apartment, I stood on the platform at 33rd St. thinking about how glad & fortunate I am to have met her. I happened to also be on the phone with another friend who, over my college years, has become someone that I value greatly. That led me to thinking about how blessed I am to be surrounded by amazing people.

I was considering having a post dedicated to a handful of specific women in my life that have really inspired & influenced me -- old roommates, current roommates, mentors, friends, etc. -- but then I had another idea: to have occasional posts dedicated to one person. Kind of like a highlight or profile...or a candle at a girl's sweet sixteen.

Despite my mom's desire to throw me one (more specifically, renting a weekend house out in the Hamptons for my friends & me), I never had one because I never wanted one. I found them to be silly celebrations that were oftentimes outrageously overdone (as clearly exhibited by MTV). The one part of sweet sixteens that I did really love though was the idea of the candle lighting. Ever since the first sweet sixteen I attended when I was much younger, I always wanted a reason to commemorate the beautiful, inspiring, & influential people in my life, but felt that I had missed a chance when I bypassed the 16th birthday mark.

Pretty silly of me. Who's to say that I can't just celebrate people on a daily basis?

I know that these people-posts won't mean much to the readers of this blog; many will just skip over it, especially when I write about someone they don't even know. The actual person I'm writing about might even skip over it. But I think that, in my efforts to rejuvenate my life, it's important for me to remember the good that's around me & to recognize the people who have helped me to get this far.