On Having Someone There

Photos by Elisa Broche @eyesofeg

When I first met Sydney, she was tucked into her own little world: a beanie pulled low, a hood covering her head, slouched in a classroom chair. She looked more like a construction worker surviving winter than a college student. We weren’t close then; we just happened to take the same class. Then life twisted, as it often does. Suddenly, I wasn’t just sitting near Sydney in class; I was living with her. A stranger turned roommate, with the oddities and rules that come with learning who someone really is behind closed doors.

Sydney was messy in ways I didn’t understand, but oddly strict about other things. She was careful and cautious. I secretly nicknamed her “Safety Kid.” I wasn’t sure what to make of her at first.

There’s a moment in every young adult’s life when something inside just ... snaps. The ground beneath you shakes. The identity you thought you had slips away. Suddenly, the clothes you wear feel like what defines you, your nest feels far away and every day feels long and heavy. For me, that moment came far from home. In that unfamiliar world, it was Sydney who quietly helped build a bridge back to myself.

It started with something small. In passing, I mentioned how McDonald’s fries were my comfort food on bad days. Most people would have nodded, maybe laughed and moved on. 

Not Sydney. 

She remembered. From then on, she never let me fight a bad day without fries. That tiny act of care became a ritual. Sydney became more than just a roommate. She became a pillar, someone so solid that when my world felt fragile, I could lean on her without fear of breaking her too. She even traveled all the way to Honduras to meet my family—a world away from hers. She loved it.

Strong friendships don’t come around often. They sneak up on you, dressed in beanies and hoodies, carrying fries on the hardest days. They aren’t perfect. Believe me, I could write a long list of things that drive me crazy about Sydney. But here’s the twist: the very things that sometimes annoy me are also the reasons I love her most. Friends and family are two words that start with the same letter, but if you look close enough, they begin to blur together.

Family is the nest we’re born into. Friends are the nest we choose, or maybe the ones who choose us.

In high school, I had friends I swore I’d never lose. We promised forever, the kind that lives in yearbooks and late-night texts. Today, I don’t talk to most of them. Life has a way of scattering people, teaching you that not all "forever's" are meant to last. But how do you walk away from someone who sat beside you in a hospital room? From someone who held your hand in the moments when words couldn’t reach? From someone who taught you the traditions of their country when you felt far from your own, or who showed you what it means to belong when your definition of home was blurry? You don’t. Or maybe you can’t.

Friendship, I’ve learned, is unpredictable. Some people appear in our lives like cameos—they play their role, leave their mark and move on. That’s OK. They were meant for a season, for a lesson, for a moment. Every so often, you meet a person who doesn’t just pass through. They change the whole plot. Woven into your story in ways that can’t be undone. Sydney is that person for me.

We all need a Sydney. Maybe that’s not their name. Maybe it’s the roommate who always left coffee waiting for you, the teammate who carried you through finals, or the friend who answered the phone at 2 a.m. without asking why. These friendships are rare, but when they show up, they remind us that life isn’t meant to be carried alone. In a world where we scroll past faces more than we sit across from them. A world where “best friend” is sometimes reduced to a title under a profile picture, it’s worth remembering what real friendship feels like. It’s not just the laughter or the adventures. It’s the fries on the worst day. The hospital chair pulled up beside yours. The willingness to travel across borders just to meet the people who made you.

That’s what Sydney gave me. I hope this story reminds you that sometimes the people we barely notice at first—the ones hidden under hoodies and beanies—end up becoming the most important chapters of our lives.