Meet me at the Dinner Table
By Lauren Slattery
Photo by Lindsay Love
I sat down at the little wooden dinner table a few steps from the kitchen and reluctantly opened my computer. I had been ready to go back to bed since I woke up and, now five o’clock, there’s nothing I want to do less than homework. Though no matter how hard I want it to - this paper simply won’t write itself. I get comfy in my unofficially-assigned seat at the table and begin to write about a theory I know nothing on.
Each of my roommates begins to trickle out of their rooms and into the kitchen. One cracks open the fridge reluctant to make anything too complicated for dinner. One plops on the couch and turns on Gilmore Girls, and before long we are all in the same room for the first time today.
In a little home, that is always slightly chaotic, with floors that are never clean no matter how often we sweep, and a balloon arch from the twentieth birthday party two weeks ago, I live with my best friends and it is wonderful.
I have always dreamed of living alone one day. My own space that is decorated the way I like it and the freedom to live in it the way I chose. But, here I am already feeling emotional about the thought of moving out of this home one day.
Now, the not too complicated dinner has turned into homemade chicken noodle soup in hopes of remedying the mystery cold our house has been plagued with. Onions are sizzling in the big, green pot on the stove and Gilmore Girls has just been turned off. At this point I am about halfway through my paper and when I look back up the chairs around me have been filled.
“Come over, we're doing dinner table homework!” I text our fifth “roommate”, and a little bit after it’s sent she’s walking through our back door.
A few minutes of work is followed up by a not so brief interruption about something that just couldn’t wait to be shared. Timers are set, twenty minutes of work before we can talk again. It helps, for a little, but soon even my headphones can’t drown out the sound of laughter. These are my favorite moments.
There is immense stress, hard nights, failed tests and silly fights, but there is so much fun to be had in a home full of girls. Sharing closets and mugs and big cookies, sitting on beds while one gets ready, rushing home to tell them about the cute boy from class, and everything in between. It makes the long days worth it.
“Sweet treat, anyone?”
One by one we shut our computers and stand up from the table before pilling into my car to go get a little something sweet as a reward for the work we actually managed to get done.
It may be a while before we have one of these nights again and I’m reminding myself to not take them for granted. Find time to soak up the people sitting in the chairs around you and make space in the midst of your busy days to be with the people who make the mundane moments the best time of the day.
