50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 39
Debbie, my USNA roommate, had moved back to Annapolis. That fact alone set something in motion.
We fell into a rhythm of lunch every couple of weeks, the kind that stretches past two hours without noticing. We were also approaching the 50th anniversary of women at the service academies, which had a way of pulling the past into the present conversation whether you invited it or not.
During one of those lunches, we talked about Kim, our other roommate.
It wasn’t the first time. Over the years, Debbie and I had wondered how she was doing, what her life looked like now. This time felt different. Debbie offered to send a brief letter after sleuthing to find a mailing address.
Kim wrote back. It was a balm to read her words, forwarded from Debbie:
It was a pleasant surprise hearing from you, and I am glad that you wrote. In answer to your last couple of questions, I haven’t gone by Spike since 1985, although old friends still use the name, which is fine, and you have the correct address for me. I have indeed thought of both you and Mary throughout the years, and it is good to hear that you both have families and are doing well.
Another life update arrived, and we began our three-way exchange of news. Now we write every six weeks or so. I got to hear from a settled and happy Kim.
The three of us had shared a room since plebe year — Debbie, Kim, and I. A three-man room, which meant a bunk and a single bed. I usually took the upper bunk. The configuration changed only that one strange year in the barn.
We were together, and apart, in the way roommates are. Mornings scattered us to different classes, different sports, different corners of Bancroft Hall. We passed light conversation across the room. Early on there were conflicts too, things adrift, different habits, the friction of sorting out how three people share a small space. In time the edges wore smooth.
Fall of second class year brought a question none of us said out loud.
There are papers to sign now, I’m told. In my time, the understanding was implicit. Walking into the first academic fall class of your 2/C year meant agreeing to the commitments of naval service, either a commission or, if you didn’t finish, time in the fleet. The commitment had teeth.
The question of staying barely crossed my mind. There had been things to endure. There would be more I couldn’t yet see. I stayed mostly because I didn’t want to think hard about what I’d do if I didn’t. I was settled into the rhythms, in the groups where I’d found something like joy, in the sense that good things were still ahead. Debbie didn’t say much about her decision either. She was thriving in her studies and in sailing. She had found her people.
Kim had her people. She also had her troubles.
They are hers to tell, not mine. All I can say is that not everything was well. Her academic ability was remarkable. The name Spike was her way of sounding tough to approach, but it couldn’t provide cover for the difficulties. The Academy was not her place, and she was working out what was keeping her there and how to find a way ahead. Debbie and I could see it. At some point we made an appointment with one of the psychologists on staff to say out loud what we had never been able to say directly: that Kim was wasting at this place.
She shouldered on until spring. Then, with a self-awareness I wouldn’t possess for years, she let us know she was resigning.
It was strange. And in another way it wasn’t. She had been dissolving in front of us for two years. She had never really been herself here.
When Debbie and I talked about Kim’s leaving, it threw our own choices into sharp relief.
We had barely made a choice at all. We had let things happen, moved from one requirement to the next, and called that staying. Kim’s decision made clear that staying was not inevitable. It was a choice. You were no longer just surviving the next inspection, the next exam, the next watch. You were choosing the Academy. You were choosing the obligation beyond it.
We thought about Kim often after that: where she had been stationed, what she was doing. Classmates who had run into her on ships passed along brief updates.
As it turned out, Kim stayed in the Navy longer than either Debbie or I did. She loved her service. She thrived. She found her way.
What do we say now in our emails that we couldn’t say as roommates?
We celebrate the choices each has made. We honor the paths. We send updates about travels and the small movements of life: bike rides, books, walks, and for some of us, grandchildren.
We are well. For that there is no end of thanks.
Nearly fifty years on, I understand that Debbie and I had both carried something from that room. And perhaps something of each other. The room shaped us, whether we knew it at the time. Kim too. The three of us landed in different places by different roads.
That turned out to be exactly right for each.
Beautiful Mary. Your writing stirs many remembrances in me. What is it that we need to say today in order to go forward?
Dear Barb, thanks for being on the list and reading. What an honor it is to have you alongside me.