An Unconventional Form of Communication

My good friend Emma and I don’t call each other regularly. We don’t send each other little text messages throughout the day, nor do we see each other all that often now that high school is over. Our form of communication is singular: we relate solely through the exchanging of 8-9 paragraph-long text messages about once a week. Many a time, a friend has looked over my shoulder as I was reading messages from Emma and gasped in horror/surprise/admiration/confusion: “Who sends you long texts like that?” People assume it must be a love note, or a crazy ex. But no. It’s just the way we communicate, pretty much the only way we know how to now. There have been urgent times when one of us has needed an immediate reply, and we have sent quick, short back-and-forth short texts to one another, but those types of exchanges feel incomplete, lack the thoroughness of our other texts. Inevitably, we circle back to our prime form of communication.

For reference, the last thing I sent her was seven 500-word text messages, filled to the brim with my lamentations, struggles, concerns, joys, small pleasures, and trivial updates. One sentence in the exchange reads, “Hence the constant pit of dread in my stomach.” Another one: “I was thinking lately about who I’d invite to my wedding.” A few sentences down: “You are a godsend.” Concluding sentence: “As always, thanks for letting me rant about my various issues and maladies; I greatly appreciate your presence in my life!” followed by several diverse heart emojis. Recent developments in our text messages: Emma’s new fascination with the TV show Suits, my new interest in someday being a social worker, our respective sibling dynamics, navigating how to use free time during break, our joint initiative in being more proactive with getting involved in college life, and… fuzzy socks. 

The texts are neither cohesive nor grammatically correct, with zero attention to capitalization or logic. Emma’s texts often focus on specific events, while mine are more scattered. We’ve been doing this since last summer, since we’ve been apart from one another. If you scroll back all the way to August and read down through March, the texts tell a story. There are hardly any gaps. It’s comparable to a journal, except it’s not only about one person, it’s about two. The exchanges are delightfully mutual and back-and-forth, balanced almost evenly between our two lives. They are emotionally focused, psychologically complex, and dense, and each of us pose several questions to the other: “so yeah lmk your thoughts on all that!” is a consistent refrain. Another constant refrain: “how are things going in the male realm?” and “just remember you are a bomb ass human!!! *star emoji* *crown emoji* *queen emoji* *fist pump emoji*.” They are uplifting and comforting, and although paying a phone call might be easier and less time consuming, the texts breed honesty and thoroughness in a way the spoken word cannot.

The last time we saw each other was in December. We were in a big crowd of high school friends and it was lovely, overwhelming, and brought up all kinds of weird nostalgia. Emma and I talked a lot during that time, but it was only after when we texted about the day and unpacked it and close-read it and went through all the Annie-and-Emma texting motions that it really felt like I had seen her again. I think of it as a type of language that applies well to both of our personalities in this really quirky and singular way. 

Admittedly, Emma and I are very different people. I am detail-oriented, can be more outgoing, more irrational. Emma is a perfectionist who focuses on big-picture ideas. Yet this form of communication that we have developed inexplicably works for both of us. It is time-consuming, often emotionally draining, and forces us to confront some of our suppressed emotions. In a new environment like college, it’s hard to find people who you feel comfortable truly talking to. The texts forced me to reflect, to be candid about what I was feeling. This was (and is) refreshing, challenging, and rare. 

Lately, I’ve been finding myself wanting to transcribe all the texts, print them out, cut them out, and create a collage of them. They tell several different stories at once, and I believe I can use them as a form of art to convey a larger message about what the first semester of college looks like, but more importantly, the forms that friendship can take in pivotal moments. However, many of the texts are filled with extremely personal, heart-wrenching expressions of sorrow, longing, ecstasy, and hope that are deliberately not meant for the public eye. I would need to sift through them and find artifacts that are not too revealing but at the same time speak to the larger project. 

For a while, I have been panicked because I have felt as though I’m not documenting my life as much as I should be. When I was younger, I kept daily, detailed journals, all the way up to pretty much my junior year of high school. Recently, I’ve lacked the motivation or care to do so. As I was thinking of ways to get myself back in the routine, it dawned on me: I’d already been doing it. Just not in the way one might think.