What makes a friendship?

It’s 8 a.m. and I’m sitting in my friend Eliza’s Honda. We’re embarking on a road trip to Oregon and joking about the group we’re going with: it’s a random one. Everybody is friends with someone, but no one is friends with everyone, and we’re about to share a house for three days. 

Funnily enough, I’m not sure Eliza and I have ever hung out one-on-one before. I see her all the time, and we share a lot of friends. I feel like I know her well, but we’ve never “gotten a meal” to catch up.

One of my goals for senior year is to take my time. 

It’s 1 p.m. and we’ve stopped in Gualala, where Eliza’s aunt lives. It’s beautiful, right along the Pacific coast, and she leaves crystals by the trees as offerings to the forest fairies. We talk about her artwork, her family and her dog Maxo. She treats us to sandwiches for lunch before urging us to get back on the road.

What started as a 7-hour drive somehow turns into 14, with all of the stops for gas and one unnecessary-but-also-very-necessary stop for pastries in Sausalito. Greta takes a turn driving while Kristine and I nap in the back. Kristine met both Eliza and Greta for the first time this morning. Somehow, it’s not awkward. We talk about senior year and our campus celebrities, postgrad and when we’d ideally get married. We listen to music and learn that Eliza and Greta have almost identical tastes (94% on Spotify Blend). 

It’s 9 p.m. when we finally get to the AirBnB. The stars are so clear in the sky.

The cabin is cozy and covered in fishing-related decor. There’s some animal heads on the walls, two comfy brown couches and a pretty patio that faces the Rogue River. We eat frozen pizza for dinner and chat while we work on our laptops, because Stanford students don’t know how to relax. But even if we’re still working, it’s nice to do it in a new space.

On our first full day, we make avocado toast for breakfast as people wake up (Greta and I actually had a 9 a.m. Zoom call before breakfast, but that doesn’t fit as nicely into the story). Brighton brings us coffee. We go on a hike with no music, just chatting. Dean teaches us a word game. We get lunch at the Horny Goat Tavern; Maxim orders a stack of schnitzel after being told it was the menu item with the most protein. We go around and discuss the two nonnegotiable traits we look for in relationships (I say “a good vocabulary and the ability to build things”).

When we return to the cabin, we find an ultra-friendly cat on the patio. Ananya names her Gia, and she becomes our best friend for the night. She’s especially fond of Graham, whose grandmother used to run a cat sanctuary, and Yanav, who just seems to have a magical touch.

We drink wine and play cards and play with the cat. It’s nice, there’s no rush.

The night culminates into what Ananya calls “The Oversharing Game,” which is where we take turns oversharing until somebody cries. It sounds masochistic, and maybe it is a little bit, but people spend their whole lives holding back out of fear that they’ll be seen.

We share about our families, our fears and regrets and how we wish to change. 

I admit to feeling lost in life with a year before graduation. In high school I felt weird and ugly, and I thought that going to Stanford would fix that for me, but it hasn’t. I’m not the first person to cry, but by the end of the game, I feel equally full and drained.

The next day, we make banana pancakes for breakfast. We lounge on the patio and eat our pancakes in the sun. We go to an antique store, where almost everybody buys something. Eliza finds a perfect pair of cowboy boots, Chris gets a new shirt to wear to dinner, Kristine gets a vintage watch and I get souvenirs to bring back to my costaff at Mars.

We visit a winery and take pictures at golden hour. We stop at In-N-Out for a quick dinner. On the way back to the cabin, I’m sitting between Max and Graham. Max taps me on the shoulder and brings up The Oversharing Game. He says something really nice. I would’ve said we were friends before, but now I’d say we know each other.

At the cabin, we walk down to the river to watch the sunset. The boys throw rocks across the river and we learn that Dean has an insanely strong arm. He says it’s about the physics of the throw. Later, we sit around the patio and Ananya brings out a birthday pancake in my honor. It’s frosted with Greek yogurt and topped with strawberries. Everybody sings.

We leave early the next morning. We take a faster route home because Eliza is hosting NSO Trivia at 8 p.m. We listen to all kinds of music and reminisce on the past three days. It was a good trip. It felt longer than three days. We agree that The Oversharing Game was the best part.

My last first day of class is on Monday. I want to hug this year as tight as I can.