In highschool, I spent lots of time each jealous of and enraptured with my good friend. You understand the sort: much like you in some ways, however totally different in each manner that counts; charismatic, humorous, assured and funky. So goddamn cool. Regardless that we each acquired into the identical faculty, received comparable awards and joined comparable golf equipment, she at all times did these issues earlier than me, and did them higher. She greeted every little thing with intention and a sparkle I might by no means emulate. Past being the article of my jealousy, she was my biggest position mannequin. We stayed buddies.
This good friend died. Additionally, she was not my good friend — I by no means met her. However the remainder is true, and I did learn her guide. Two years in the past, through the summer season of my junior 12 months, proper as I used to be beginning the endeavor of making use of to varsity, I encountered, and shortly devoured, the posthumously printed assortment of quick tales and essays “The Reverse of Loneliness,” written by Marina Keegan ’12. Like many readers, I used to be towed via the guide partly as a result of I used to be a Yale hopeful, however largely due to its central paradox: that Marina, the incarnation of potential and brilliance, incoming New Yorker staffer, author of the sentence “the notion that it’s too late to do something is comical,” was additionally a 22-year-old who died 5 days after commencement.
Due to Marina, I completed making use of to Yale. The eponymous essay made it clear it could be loopy not to attend a school the place I might really feel the other of loneliness at commencement — and I couldn’t discover a college with a greater group for me than at Yale.
Additionally due to Marina, I had one thing to do that summer season.
When The Reverse of Loneliness LLC interviewed me over the cellphone for an internship, I had no concept that the hole, collected voice on the opposite line belonged to Marina’s mother till “my daughter” slid into the dialog. This shocking intimacy was attribute of the remainder of my time working this job — and finally essentially the most enriching half.
I turned Marina Keegan’s archivist. To construct two web sites with Tracy (one for “The Reverse of Loneliness” and one for Marina Keegan), compile Marina’s biography and run her social media accounts, I needed to untangle collections of her images, journal entries and unpublished writing. Cramped up at house with nowhere else to go — on my mattress, in my mattress, on the ground and one time in my bathe once I wanted a brand new work floor — I’d sift via lots of of recordsdata despatched as particular person emails from Tracy. My plunge into Marina’s privateness felt private, generally unhappy — borderline invasive at occasions — and quite a bit like wanting via my siblings’ rooms once they’re not house.
Earlier I mentioned that Marina Keegan was not my good friend. Nicely, I take it again. Regardless that I by no means met her and by no means can, these previous six months have made it clear that she impacts you want a good friend — particularly, the form of good friend whose persona and zest for all times are so interesting that you simply subconsciously mannequin your personal character after them. I feel that’s why organizing her paper path made me really feel like a stalker — as a result of she’s one among us. And the unbelievable factor about Marina and “us” is that this “us” doesn’t simply embrace Yale college students, and even faculty college students. She excels at being a good friend for lots of people.
I didn’t consciously consider Marina as any kind of companion once I first learn her work, or anytime earlier than I turned an intern selling it. And why would I? An writer isn’t normally a good friend. I don’t learn a textual content to really feel buddy-buddy with its author. Like most, I’m roped into books for tales, concepts; writers usually appear secondary to what they’ve written. Hardly ever does my self-image authorize me to think about myself on an equal airplane — a primary situation for friendship — with an writer.
However Marina is totally different from different writers. Organizing the main points of her life has repeatedly proven me that there’s a lot to study from Marina past what’s in her guide. And there’s a lot to study from her guide in gentle of her life — definitely greater than in her dying.
It’s true: We learn about Marina as a result of she died. That’s what drove her mother and father to publish her writings from faculty lessons, Yale Every day Information articles and highschool assignments. And that’s what number of, together with myself, have been first satisfied the work was “attention-grabbing” sufficient to place down 15 {dollars} at Barnes & Noble on a 22-year-old’s writing.
As Marina would say, right here’s the factor. Usually, we wouldn’t purchase the work of anybody within the making. We search expertise that’s already made, sufficiently acclaimed and baked into sufficient conventions of worth to be worthy of our consideration. It’s uncommon that we put a 22-year-old author who makes use of exclamation marks and all caps to emphasise a degree subsequent to Walt Whitman on the bookshelf. Certainly, opinions of “The Reverse of Loneliness” name her writing “heartbreaking proof of what might have been,” with “a literary voice nonetheless in growth” that makes you “surprise what she may need achieved.” However HEY! I feel the surprise and vibrancy and naivete that hemorrhage from Marina’s writing are infectious — and have little to do with the writing she would have made in her 30s, 40s, 50s. We are able to’t have extra Marina, however what we’ve is sweet in itself. And it makes me suppose we want extra naivete printed.
Right here’s the opposite factor: Marina was a really particular human. I used to neglect concerning the human half. Coming to Yale, the place most are usually not solely particular, but in addition actively sustaining a picture of specialness, it felt completely customary for me to neglect that Marina’s extra much like us than not. This summer season, sorting via remembrances from buddies and journal entries wherein she wrote about her personal insecurities, jealousies and fears made it clear that she is greater than the particular person we will perceive from her guide. She was obsessive about “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings”; she was a horrible speller; she had unrequited crushes; she felt like a misfit when it got here to performing; she acquired a tattoo at 16; she didn’t get the NPR job she needed after commencement; she virtually lived within the Saybrook Library. She confused SSS for Est Est Est. Lots of us have executed these items. The experiences themselves weren’t distinctive, however Marina was distinctive in her articulation of frequent expertise in imaginative fiction and debilitatingly resonant essays.
At first, when studying these supplies, I used to be much more mournful of Marina’s potential than once I had initially learn her work. The vulnerability in her archives solely made her expertise extra obvious, and her mortality all of the extra tragic. However now, I discover myself much less unhappy once I learn Marina’s work. Generally, I neglect I’m not studying a classmate’s work and discover myself subconsciously, selfishly jealous. This isn’t as a result of I’ve grown egocentric and insensitive to dying (I feel). It’s due to Marina’s mom, whose strategy to remembrance has one thing to show everybody. I discover Tracy so spectacular as a result of she has created a model for “The Reverse of Loneliness” constructed completely on hope. She’s the kind of particular person most individuals nonetheless below parental steering yearn for in moms: She encourages unhinged aspiration and makes younger voices like mine really feel valued. It is sensible that she’s her daughter’s mom.
Whereas penning this essay, I’ve revisited “Tune for the Particular,” as a result of I’ve at all times considered it because the paragon of the Marina Paradox. So many traces within the essay — a rumination on whether or not we will ever be ‘particular’ — slice a contradiction between Marina’s hopes and the fact of her dying. However one hope has not less than been fulfilled: “I need what I feel and who I’m captured in an anthology of indulgence I can comfortingly tuck right into a shelf in some labyrinthine library.” Marina was each particular and particularly human, and I’m so grateful that what she thinks, who she is, has been gifted to all of us.
