the first year that the five of us lived in GUCCI HOUSE was pretty near perfect and for me, completely unexpected. it was the beginning of my second half of college – all of my friends had graduated and i was simply thankful to be taken in by 4 kind souls, two of whom i sorta knew from some classes but apart from that, i was moving in with four strangers. within the first few days i was laughing harder than i had ever laughed before – and then we laughed some more.

we were an odd group, the 5 of us – 4 jews and an indian. to this day i continue to believe we could have easily been our own sitcom. our differences may have been greater than the things we shared (loud voices, large chests) but we seemed to thrive on the fact that we were somehow making it work.

we decorated our house with saris and learned how to keep a kosher kitchen.

we descended on family homes

we planned party after party after party for birthdays and holidays and random friday nights

we played LOADED QUESTIONS

we held hands as we watched the buildings fall

we wiped each other’s eyes when we cried over boys, boys and more boys

we argued over politics

and we began to struggle over our differences

in the middle of our second year living together, the makeup of GUCCI HOUSE changed, and so did our friendships, across the board. looking back now, i can see that DIDDY’s moving out was the right thing to do not only for relationships outside the house but for the remaining friendships in the house as well – but at the time it broke my heart. as the girl who started as the outsider, the GUCCI GIRLS had quickly become my lifeline and i felt great fear and anxiety over the dramatic change.

i’ve stayed in touch with each of the girls to a different degree – the RED HEAD holding the chuppah at my wedding, the INDIAN instructing all our wedding guests about proper jewish wedding etiquette (while that may seem unexpected to you, for me, i expected nothing less). but i’ve missed having DIDDY in my life on a more regular basis. we’ve both lived our own lives – getting married having babies…well she’s had a baby….and while we email on and off, i wouldn’t have called her a close friend since that year and a half that we spent together on our grey sectional couch.

but yesterday we met for coffee in the city – and while there was clearly a lifetime to catch up on, it also felt like no time had passed. as i was walking back to grand central station, after the time we spent together, i found myself sort of laughing – i can’t believe i just told her such intimate details about my life – i barely know her anymore!

and then i sort of got it – a close friendship is the only friendship we’ve ever shared with each other. and it felt really good to have her back in my life.