almost twenty questions

mindo: do you wish you were the bald soprano?
me: no, i never really dreamed for that.

me: if you could be one person in this school, other than you, who would it be? why?
mindo: mrs. j. i'd know if my hair was natural.

mindo: will i ever be content?
me: yes you will, we both will. and we'll find our soulmates.

mindo: what were you thinking of in your prom pictures?
me: i was thinking, "why?"

in moving and unpacking, and clean-sweeping lots of clean-sweeping, i find that i save everything. every note, every word, every thought, every scrap of paper, every souvenir, every picture, every card, every memory. i came across this today, it was a list of almost twenty questions that mindo and i passed back and forth throughout one day our senior year. mindo was always a hundred times deeper than i ever was, no matter how hard i pretended. i loved her dearly, but was always a little intimidated by her. she was open to everything, she was a free spirit. her flighty behavior well masked the depth that few of us got to see. and her goofball behavior was a harsh contrast to the girl i knew who talked about soulmates and life after death on a daily basis. i can still picture the sincerity that was in her eyes when she'd ask a question. you'd want to laugh at the absurdity of it, assuming that she was joking. then you'd look at her and realize she wasn't. i remember the emptiness that was on her face as she turned and grabbed onto us on that cold snowy day when she buried her mother. i know that growing up means letting go, i just wish that i would have tried a little harder to hold onto her friendship. meeting up with her once a year just isn't the same. especially when i look back on all the thoughts we shared on paper over the course of that year.