Stories Without Endings

There are places I remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

We were the girls of Penfield Hall. Brought together by accident. Brought together by fate. Five points of light that became the best of friends, until like a supernova we burnt ourselves out, scattering our remnants in different directions throughout the galaxy.

In the back of my mind, I have always wondered. Wondered what life would have been like had things not gone the way they did. Had we made better choices, or smarter decisions, or had we known that the path before us would prove to be so difficult. An uphill climb. Would we have changed a thing?

Pictures of random memories fill my mind and make me laugh. Like the time we skipped our classes to watch Jeopardy. Showing up in the dining hall with our pajamas on and our baseball caps slung low over our eyes, too hungover to move but too hungry to stay in bed. Night after night after night of bar hopping and bed hopping and acting like fools on the long walk back from the creek.

And who could forget the boys?

Jay Bear, Guinea, Eric, Spider, Jim Beam, Dennis, PJ, Kleahner, Chip, Tommy, Jimmy, Paulsy, Bob, Daryn with a 'Y" ... Ryder, Slapper, Ray, Lee, OJ, Little Lou, Double Marc, Matt aka the Weasel, Kinger, Vazanno, Tim, and many, many more that would take too long to remember.

We had some awesome times. House parties at Tommy's. My Ouija beer. Buds at PJ's on Baker Street, and the infamous tucking it ... Robin breaking PJ's nose. Brenda and her noisy outburst by the chain link fence only minutes after leaving a crowded bar that had been chanting Coley. Tracy dangling worms from her mouth. Carrie crying loud enough to shatter glass. And the well known (but little used) price list for cheap touches below the waist (. 25 cents) that hung on the wall in our suite, which only furthered our college nickname along, so that when we walked to and from our dorms, there was always someone calling out, "Hey Hookers!"

The good times are easy to remember. They bring smiles, familiar stories I have told a thousand times, and a warmth much like a comforting hug. Those times I wouldn't trade. But bad followed good in those days. And things went wrong as they were wont to do. And when put to the test, we all failed quite miserably.

Brenda dropped out of college. Robin decided to take a year off. Carrie, Tracy and I held on as long as we could. I moved back home at the end of October. Carrie and Tracy packed up and left too. I haven't spoken to either since. In May I found out I was pregnant, four months later Brenda found out she was too. We had our babies, me a girl and Brenda a boy. And somehow I lost touch with Robin.

The girls of Penfield Hall were no longer.

And yet there is light ... A small and silent beacon beginning to glow, beginning to come back into its own being. The initial three. Brenda, Robin and I, talk and if not regularly, email. And Carrie too. Though I have yet to speak to her or hear of her through any other means than Robin. And tonight, we have come full circle. Tracy has been found.

I want so desperately to contact all of them. To bring us back together. The new, the improved, the older and the wiser. I want so much for all the water to be under the bridge, to be able to pick up the phone and call any one of them and tell them everything on my mind. I want my best friends back. All of them.

There is a story to be told. It's had its beginning, it's witnessed its end and now it asks to have its middle ...