Sakhi - Soul Friend

 

I went to Dogtown with my friends yesterday because I was afraid to cancel the personal day I had requested a week ago. It seemed unkind to the substitute teacher who may have been counting on that paycheck. It wasn't her fault I had crashed since then and did not feel like celebrating anything. Also, I could not be alone. 

I am not a big drinker on the best of days and usually end up throwing unreciprocated shade that no one else appreciates.

Me: Why did you just tell our Uber driver that you loved her? You do not love her.

Natalie: I do love her. She drives a Tesla.

Me: That does not mean you love her.

Cara: WE RODE IN A TESLA, BITCHES!!!

Me: You're pretty far gone, aren't you? Use "iterations" in a sentence.

Cara: The other day, there were so many iterations in my sentence.

Me: That is a terrible sentence. You are an English teacher.

Most of the time, I wish I could have a video camera so I could record everything and memorize the best lines to recount to them later. But every time I try to record my friends talking to each other in a language only they can understand, they start making sense again, and my videos just turn out dumb. So instead, I trail around after them collecting beer cans, holding doors open, and telling people to be careful.

After a whiskey and about 8 beers, Cara pointed to me and then to herself and said, "You know something? This should never have worked. Me and you. We're opposites."

"That's true," I said. 

"But," she continued, taking a drag on her cigarette, "we are friends of the soul."

"Yes. Your soul is like a butterfly. And mine is like... something sad," I replied.

"Your soul is like a grub worm," Cara nodded wisely.

"That's a terrible thing to say."

"Well, you know. It's like a grub before it becomes something beautiful," Cara replied, alternating between drinking her whiskey and a beer that had also mysteriously appeared. 

"Grub worms never become beautiful. You put them on a rock and smash them with a hammer in South Carolina. That's it. That's the extent of a grub's existence."

"No, no, like before they turn into one of your monarchs." 

"I think you are confusing two different species. I want you to remember this day when I told you that your soul was a butterfly and you told me my soul was a grub worm."

"Ok. What was the most magical part of your day, T?" she asked me as I helped her pile all the glasses onto the bar counter.

I thought. Cara can find magic in anything. Is that because she drinks more than me or because her soul is a butterfly? Or is her soul a butterfly because she drinks more than me? Or does she drink more than me because her soul is already a butterfly? Would I be a butterfly with a different tolerance level? Or does depression just mean your soul can never be a butterfly?

I realized I am never so aware of what it means to be a Virgo as I am when I am around my friends.

"I will tell you my most magical moment," Cara said as she looped her arm through mine and we started down Morganford. "It was when we willed the bagpipers into stopping right in front of us!! We wanted it so much that we willed it to happen, and then it did!!!"

"That's magic, eh?"

"Yes, that's what magic is. So what was your most magical moment of the day?"

"Maybe when I fought you for the white beads that guy threw at us?"

"Yeah, I did all the work for those beads and then you just reached up from behind me with your long yoga arms and took them out of the air and wouldn't let go. That was some good magic, too."

I want to be the type of person who sees magic in everything. I want my soul to be a butterfly instead of a grub worm. I just don't know how to get there. I don't even know if you can get there when you are this deeply depressed.

The thing about monarchs is, even the final generation in every cycle only lives 5 weeks. That's it. Five weeks to make your difference in the world. Five weeks to pollinate your flowers, fly three thousand miles, find a mate, lay some eggs. Five weeks to live until you die.

Grub worms have ten times the lifespan of a monarch. Still. If I got to choose, if it is a choice, I want my soul to be a butterfly. It feels like a shorter life is worth it if it's one where you see magic everywhere.