Somewhere Out There

It is once again September 16th. Yes, in some circles, today is Mexican Independence Day and that’s not a bad thing. That’s just not relevant to this entry.

Today is Marlisa’s birthday. As has been the case for many years now, I think about her on her birthday. I don’t know if I should, but I do. I haven’t seen her in over 25 years, so one might ask why it seems like I make such a big deal about her birthday, when we’ve gone over two decades without any kind of communication between us. The truth is, is that I don’t know. I just do. I remember things, random things, apparently even those things that in the end, serve me absolutely zero purpose. Yes, remembering Marlisa’s birthday does nothing for me. Or does it?

Let’s take a trip into yesteryear, shall we? 

She was starting her sophomore year at USC when I got there as a freshman. She was a slim, petite young Latina and someone with whom I was enamored immediately at first sight. She was gorgeous. She was smart. At the time, I thought she had it all.  I guess even now, I still think that way.  

We were both psychology majors, though as far as I am aware, we were never in any of the same classes. Maybe that was just luck of the draw, though we were never that close to make any efforts to coordinate our academic schedules. It just never happened. 

We were also coworkers who, as luck would again have it, never had perfectly aligned work schedules. I worked four days out of the week, while she worked three. For only one of those days, we worked together. We shared a Tuesday evening shift. While I remained at that job the duration of my four years at USC, she left after that one year. Into my sophomore year, we really didn’t see each other much. In fact, now that I think about it, we didn’t see much of each other for the rest of our time at the university. Yet somehow, we remained friends, albeit from a distance.   

Not long after she graduated, she found a way to leave me a card, as well as a picture of her in her graduation gown. I think she was able to have someone at the job leave it in my mailbox.  In the card, she wished me well and even encouraged me to keep in touch with her by email. I don’t know how I had come across her personal email address or what I did to obtain it, which was different than the USC alumni email address she provided in her card, but at some point, I had two email addresses for her. 

After all these years, I have not heard from her. I used to send birthday wishes to her personal email address, only to never ever receive a response. Eventually, I stopped sending those annual birthday emails, but it seems that I’ve taken to instead writing entries on her birthday in this journal. I guess this is my way of keeping her memory alive, though I want to make it clear that I have absolutely no reason to think that she’s no longer with us. 

I have faith that she’s doing well and representing USC as proudly as I do, wherever in the world she might be. I know she’s out there somewhere. She has to be. After all, she and I aren’t that old. 

Well, for yet another year, I say these words without being anywhere near their intended recipient… 

Happy Birthday, Marlisa.