I wrote the following essay in response to the prompt for Third Space Sunday’s March 8th event— “Luck” —and with the intent of reading/sharing aloud. I wrote two drafts of this, and read it to myself (for timing and practice) at least five times, and was never able to do so without crying. Meg, I miss you! But man do I feel lucky to have this friendship. Wherever our two feet are landing in the world, I find ways to see you. Wherever we are, we have this.

After a breakup, I needed somewhere to stay, that wasn’t my friend’s new condo with her boyfriend. It was so generous of them to open their living room to me for three weeks, but I needed a bed to sleep on.

So, I searched on Craig’s List, as one did in DC, in 2013. I found exactly what I was looking for: “1 month sublet: Bedroom, furnished, group house in Adam’s Morgan”. It was just down the street from where I was currently couch-crashing. It wasn’t a one-year lease, it was space to pause.

Someone was on their way to Turkey for a month, subletting their room and their furniture and their beautiful sunny windows. I was on my way to a temporary place to land, giving me a little more time to get my shit together!

The room was in the back of a beautiful three-story row house on Mintwood Place, on the second floor. A closet set up in the hallway, a shared bathroom. The shower was hardly big enough to turn around in. But the bedspread was dandelion-yellow, adding extra sunshine to the light coming in from the wall of windows. I could get over the parking nightmare every day, for the gift of another month to figure out my next steps.

I moved in on March 1, 2013.

As luck would have it, one month later, two of the five rooms in the house were going to be open for new renters. Posted on Craig’s List! So about two weeks after I moved in, the roommates hosted an open house. I came home in the middle of it, to half a dozen people wandering around, checking things out.

Megan—whom I had already chatted with quite a bit, and invited to a bar-crawl the Friday before, with some of my coworkers— was sitting on the kitchen counter, answering questions and taking applications. Her cousin, Tim, had already claimed one of the rooms. The other one was the “Master” Bedroom. Walk-in closet, huge bathroom, space everywhere. A rare luxury for a 20-something in DC! It was also, of course, the most expensive room in the house.

And it all sounded great, unless you, like me, only made about $50,000 a year in DC.

I asked about the people applying, if anyone they liked had stopped by. “Not really,” Megan said. “But ya know…YOU could just stay.”

“I would LOVE to, but I can’t afford it,” I said with a little laugh. Ha ha, me and my little dietitian salary, in this beautiful house! I wish!

A few days later, she approached me with an idea. “What if I move to the Master Bedroom and you take my room? The room is less expensive, but we’d be on the same floor. It’d be fun!" she said.

Financially, it was still a stretch, but immediately, I knew I would stay. Because, this house! A dream! And because she felt like someone I wanted to know.

What I didn’t realize, in that exact moment, was that a few years later, I’d worry that she had kind of ruined friendship for me. Many moves later, trying to make new friends in new places, I always felt a little void. “I wish Megan was here.” In that exact moment, I just knew, I should stay.

We would only have 15 months together on Mintwood Place, but we didn’t know that yet. We posted a selfie to Instagram, in August 2013, from our new favorite bar. The caption reads, “The summer that changed us.” We took trips together, became regulars at a this bar together, I converted her to running and she did a 5K with me. I think she kind of hated it, but also kind of loved it. (If you know, you know! ) We exchanged notes back and forth on a chalkboard, like middle schoolers writing notes. We grilled things together on the back patio, listened to music loudly, and hosted house parties.

As luck would have it, also that August, she traveled to Turkey. While there, she met someone who was taking a year off to travel the world, and happened to be on the same excursion with her. Less than a year later, she’d move to Johannesburg to be with him. She left DC the same week that I did in June 2014—me moving to California with Mike, for an 18-month stay in Monterey. Our plan was to come back to DC, and we did. Hers was be there for, maybe, 3-5 years.

For 15 months, we were in a friendship dream, not only housemates, but living together on the third floor in what often felt like our own little world. In the 12+ years since, we haven’t even lived in the same hemisphere. We live in what often feel like two different worlds, but because we both know how rare this kind of friendship is, that hasn’t stopped us.

She is a 16-20 hour flight away. And yet, I’ve seen her at least once a year, with the exceptions of 2020 and 2021, since she moved to Africa. We’ve had pregnancies and babies together, many visits to and within DC and Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, California and South Africa. We were in each other’s weddings. Her family has become my extended family; her cousins, now also my friends. She saved me from a making the wrong kind of big life decision a few years ago—the only time I’ve ever been upset with her for calling me on my shit, because I knew she was right but wasn’t ready to hear it. We exchange one or a dozen voice-notes a week. We still know the littles things about each other’s day to day, and the big things happening in each other’s lives.

Thirteen years later, I still consider her my person. She can’t be my emergency contact, she can’t come over for family dinners where our kids can run around together every Sunday. We have to go to GREAT lengths to plan a trip together, but we’ve done it—it’s doable. That we’re still friends? It might seem like an unlikely outcome—one mostly made possible by modern technology, and our stubbornness to stick with each other—but we never doubted it.

To me, it was kismet, fate, whatever you want to call it. I found that one post on Craig’s List, that one day. There was never a life where we didn’t meet. I know how lucky I am to have this friendship, so I won’t let it go.

A sublet that saved me a month of big life decisions, luckily, became one of the decisions that changed my life the most.