If We Don't Laugh, We'll Cry.

individual

emily

group

Right now, I'm sitting in a little coffee shop off of Raleigh Road with one of my best friends whose name is also Madeline -- which means we have a cosmic connection.

We're looking through our graduation photos and I just said to her "we graduate in two weeks from today", to which she immediately responded "if we don't keep laughing we'll start crying".

So now I'm sitting here, flipping through an album of memories in my brain -- like someone who just waltzed mindlessly into the one of those vintage music shops -- flipping idly through a record book, wondering why even the greatest, realest things can only exist as two dimensional memories when they're over, and wondering what it was that kept me laughing instead of crying these past few years.

First, there's Emily, my undeniably hilarious roommate of four years who has had me doubled over in pain from swells of laughter since we were drunk eating on the floor of our freshman dorm. If you're trying to get a sense of her, think of Amy Schumer, and think no further. But Emily is moving to Atlanta, and I'm going to New York.

Next there's our house, which we call 401. In the kitchen there are linoleum counters, a terribly uneven green tile floor and a fridge from approximately 1983. In the living room, there is a stripper pole we ordered off Amazon and a bunch of paintings above the boarded up fireplace that we painted when Emily got her concussion. But the house is staying here, and I'm going to New York.

Then there's that loose brick that sticks up out of the sidewalk that I walk past everyday on the way to class. It's right outside of Carroll Hall. It's gotten me a few times, but the little dark part of me loves laughing at everyone else I see trip over it. But the brick won't be coming with me either.

All of these things-- Emily, my house, that brick -- and the one million more things just like them, have made me laugh so hard it hurts. And while they can't come with me, they've given me an album of memories I can flip through whenever I want, so that I can keep laughing instead of crying.

And who knows, I might steal the brick.