In the real world, we might be strangers now — once close friends or friends in passing — but in my dreams, we still hangout like nothing ever changed.
Last night, I saw someone who I haven’t spoken to in six years. I didn’t run into them at the grocery store or at the gym, I ran into them at an airport built up in my imagination. This airport had floors that were a blue-gray patterned carpet tile with stripes. The AC was blasting and I felt the hairs on my arm prick up. I was standing at my gate and I felt isolated.
I was scared. Despite being surrounded by my friends, there was something scary about change. Change that felt imminent. But as this fear creeped up on me, childhood faces began to pop up, and my fear dissolved into joy. It was as if the universe had heard my small calling for borrowed minutes of the past.
I was pleasantly surprised to see my old friends and familiar faces from fifth grade at the gate across from me. In an attempt to capture my feelings, I quickly jotted down anything I could recall in my notes app on Aug. 4, 2021.
“His face lit up. He was so, so happy to see me. And I was so happy to see all of them.”
Even though this note is over four years old, I still remember how I felt. I was happy to have been remembered. To have been seen. To have been a part of someone’s story. But what I think caught me off guard — and surrounded me with a sense of safety — was the reminder of who I used to be when we were friends.
I was one of many in the crowd of five-foot-fifth graders who were playing bay-blade, watching Attack on Titan and drinking an abundance of milk cartons during lunch. In these memories I find nostalgia in our innocence, in growing up and figuring out who we were. Whether it was in our school plays, acting, dancing, painting sets or in choir, we were all figuring out our passions, and in a lot of ways who we wanted to be for the rest of our lives. Among all of this, in recalling our excitement and fear and hope, I couldn’t help but see pieces of who they were in the present-me.
And I guess that made me think about a quote my friend Dina told me. I’m sure it got a lot of traction on TikTok or Instagram, so there’s a good chance you’ve heard it before. It says something along the lines of:
“We are a mosaic of everyone we’ve ever loved.”
The quote, in a very poetic way, sums up the idea that people whom you’ve loved — whom you’ve chosen to spend your waking moments with — make up the person you are. And we know this is true, right? I know my little dibujitos of roses come from 10-year-old me watching my dad sketch on invoices when I went to work with him. I know the way I twirl my hair comes from my mom.
Aside from family, I don’t think we give this quote enough weight when we consider the constants in our life. Whether it’s the barista at your coffee shop who knows your order, the same peer you make small talk with at lunch before grabbing a bite or the receptionist at the front desk who greets you every morning.
These people play an important role in our lives. They witness us in the awkward-in-between moments. The moments where we’re still figuring ourselves out. Most of the time, it takes losing that environment — moving away from a community — to realize how much they mattered. And that’s what my dream told me.
These familiar faces that I saw at the airport — whether we had been acquaintances or close friends — belonged to a version of me I thought I outgrew. The chubby 10-year-old girl with an extreme side part and a notebook full of anime drawings who sat at the cobalt-blue lunch table everyday for fifth-grade lunch. The girl who was so excited for what the world had to hold — for what she could create. She still lives on, even after stretch marks and acne and a non-existent growth spurt. So these dreams act as a remembrance of her awkward-in-between moments and those of her surrounding her.
And maybe that’s the comforting part. Even when relationships end, whether we’re leaving schools, moving cities or countries, the pieces of everyone we’ve met don’t get left, scattered everywhere. They arrange themselves into a masterpiece of who we are. And this mosaic keeps building on. Building a version of you that has pieces of everyone you’ve ever loved.
Alison Barrera PO ’29 has an obsession with drawing things on her face. Something about face paint on a random day with water-activated eyeliner brings her joy like never before. Flowers, stars, hearts, even dots. Even though she painted it on, she still forgets she’s wearing it.
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