Befri & Stend

On our first night as roommates, I slept at an ex’s. He had a spare bed, and we were on friendly terms. More importantly though, I knew that Lien was at multiple parties per night, was well known across our freshman campus on Mount Vernon, and like an old car that can’t help but drown out ambient noise when turned on, I was afraid of a lifestyle clash. Yeah, I was that non-confrontational. Day two: I repeated what had allowed me to sleep the night before. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Day three: Lien bravely approached me. She dragged her feet back and forth as though there were an invisible soccer ball between her legs. She said she had something to tell me, adding a few beats between each word.

“What, what is it?” I nervously asked. Her uncertain behavior was uncharacteristic, and I didn’t know why she was acting this way. I thought, Maybe I’ve done something to offend her. Maybe she knows how I actually feel or realizes that she’s in a much cooler league than me and wants me to step up my social game. Does she want to throw a party?

Suddenly, Lien dove under her bed’s comforter. She yelled, “Is it because of the smell?”

Is my roommate a pothead? I wondered. Is she a trash hoarder who doesn’t throw away leftovers? I had no idea what she was talking about.

Without any realistic theories, my mind wandered. I thought about how many desk supplies needed to be organized before school started. Next, I noticed that Lien’s comforter was made from heavy-duty fabric, which seemed more like a family hand-me-down than something she might have gotten just for college.

After what could have been minutes, a very muffled voice whispered, “It is, isn’t it? It’s the smell.” It was obvious Lien was embarrassed, but I couldn’t understand why.

I needed to look like I was in this conversation, even though I still had no idea what we were talking about. I could either play along or fess up that I was lost.

I chose the truth. “What are you even talking about?”

“Ugggggh, do I have to say it out loud?” She seemed so excessively concerned.

I was so self-conscious that I didn’t even try to figure out the situation. Once again, I let my desire to get out of the moment dominate my decision-making. I shifted the conversation to the part of the topic I knew was true. “Oh, sorry, I just had to talk with a friend for the last couple nights. I’ll be sleeping here tonight.” No, I had not intended on doing that, but it was clear this girl felt cast out by me, so I thought I’d try to see what spending the night in our room would be like.

Later that day, I learned that Lien farted. The stuff of grandparents who don’t realize they’re letting one rip, but you know, because you can see them smile unconsciously.

“Constantly,” she confessed. Yup. That was the kind of openness we started with.

I had to make things right; I had to realize that I had misjudged what a typical night as roommates might be. Actually, I had misjudged Lien altogether. That third day as roommates, that first night we spent in the same room, we didn’t sleep. Nor the night after that, nor the night after that. Or at least I don’t remember anything but young kid sleepover behavior. It was like bedtime signaled story time. Neither of us had ever shared the kind of stuff we shared with each other, talking openly about our biggest anxieties—and about how, although we knew these anxieties were irrational, we still couldn’t reconcile what we intellectually understood to be true and how we emotionally felt.

One of those first nights, I said, “We should sleep. It’s getting hard to…form sentences.”

“I’m half dreaming,” Lien said.

And then, we proceeded to talk into the night as though expressing our intentions to sleep was just a formality. There was so much affirmation to be had. Our families’ immigrant backgrounds, city-to-suburb moves, school triumphs—and especially lack of school triumphs—bonded us. Our friends were superstars, and we felt like we were supposed to be academically at the top of the class, or at least known for being concert pianists or record-breakers in whatever hobby took over our lives. But we didn’t go all out, out of fear that we wouldn’t be at the top, pretending that had we tried, we would have been right there with our friends.

We also had variations on the same themes. I felt the burden of changing the fate of my family and supporting the maternal side of my family in the Philippines so that they were no longer in poverty. Lien told me about her brother, the second youngest and middle of her three brothers. At night, her mom would tell him bedtime stories of how he needed to save Vietnam. I had my own horror stories of abusive relationships to induce above average fear of strangers and men, not necessarily in my life alone but certainly in my family. Lien’s mom had hardship not just as a refugee, but as someone whose cries she heard at night when her dad closed the door. My mom constantly sighed without explanation when she simply looked at me after I played outside in the sun, my desire to play sports and barely tan skin making her worry that no one would want to marry me. The youngest of three older sisters, Lien was never the perfect immigrant daughter, dismissing the delicate expectations of a “good Vietnamese girl” with her infectiously loud and prolonged laugh, and chooses to speak her mind for what she thinks is right, especially when against the status quo. For two personalities that seemed so different, we sure felt the same way about the expectations placed on us and the roles we rejected but deeply wanted to fulfill.

She shared childhood trauma she didn’t think anyone would understand. I shared childhood trauma I didn’t think anyone would understand. She joked about the sort of person she wanted to be—a teacher, a librarian, an organizer, a photographer, a grassroots advocate, and a TV host. She joked about how she feared having to be all the above. I told her about my five-year plan, every detail and why it was going to work. I told her about how I’d had a five-year plan the previous year and the year before that and the year before that, every detail, and why none of them ever had a chance of working out. We cried so much, as if finally given permission to acknowledge we both might have depression. We laughed so much, as if finally given permission to accept how ridiculous our coping mechanisms had become.

“It’s like we’re in a reality show,” I said, pretending to look around for invisible cameras. Only a staged production could have crossed our paths this way.

“Yeah, every time I think we can’t relate more…” Lien started.

“We do!” We both finished together. “Jinx.” We both smiled and looked away as if to see if everything was still the same in case time had passed and we hadn’t noticed. “Double jinx. Stop it. You stop it!” I felt like the worst kind of B-level film, where dialogue could have been auto-generated by a bot.

I give all the credit to Lien. If she hadn’t been so naturally open, I might not have shared anything, let alone so much, with her. She gave me the gift of what it was like to share and not expect ridicule.
Lien paused our story swapping to say, “Ugh, we’re being so gross.”

“Yeah, we need to clean our place up. Do laundry. Shower.” At the end of that first week, we had slept only a few hours per night, and classes were just about to start.

“No, I mean the way we talk.” She was smiling as she spoke, but I knew what she meant.

Being the more uncomfortable of the pair in our closeness, I was also more dramatic in how I felt. I added, “Yeah, sometimes I want to punch myself. I mean, if I overheard people talk like we’re talking, I’d want to punch their faces.”

“But you’re the best,” she said, still smiling. “We’re the best. I love us.”

“This is a crazy friendship. This is the beginning of one of those Lifetime movies. And I’m into it.” I was genuinely happy to be a part of something super sappy. Not the bet I would have made at the end of sophomore year!

These nauseatingly cheesy conversations were common. We joked about getting those heart best friend necklaces. Since each heart half read just a portion of “Best Friends,” we began to use the resulting words as nicknames for each other: “Befri” and “Stend.”

We were obsessed with each other, so much so that we both ended up taking academic incompletes for the year. Usually, getting an incomplete required something like a major life change, the onset of a mental disability, or the need to physically be somewhere else. In a way, Lien and I experienced all those things. There wasn’t enough time in the day to give each other space to vent about the past and make space for each other to share our own feelings. It’s like we each wore an invisible sign that said, “Tell us what you need,” as we took in other people’s lives but put out very little of our own. I never thought I was important or interesting enough to share unsolicited thoughts. Lien always played the role of court jester and ringmaster and focused more on shining light on what was in front of her. So this space was novel. It was the food we didn’t realize we were starved of, and we couldn’t get enough. Is that how addictions begin?

We were also hooked on each other’s kindness, endorphins rushing to our brains whenever we made the other laugh, reach a new insight, or otherwise grow. If we were in deep conversation over lunch, that conversation was more important than class. If I was taking my first step to singing out loud, trying on a more well-known melody instead of assuming the alto part as was my way, then this moment was bigger than studying for a test. I suppose prioritizing the moment’s good time sacrificed that year’s classroom education, not to mention started us on an unhealthy codependency. But it also gave us a level of support we felt so completely that we were willing to take risks.

For example, I had always taken the safe route when it came to life choices, choosing business for my studies because that would be more stable professionally. Lien was going to teach or take a job that allowed her to support children, something her family noticed she was good at and supported. That, or she’d make it big in real estate, the hope her mom had to help the family get out of debt. But during our junior year, exploring the city—attending protests, campaigning for businesses, connecting students with local organizations—ultimately allowed us to explore our own talents. We figured out what each other were drawn to simply by observing when the other looked most excited. It was liberating to answer only to what our bodies said they enjoyed.

Later, mid-way through our first year together, Lien celebrated my birthday with a surprise. She had gone around to everyone she thought I was friends with, collecting $5 or $10 per person and gifting me with my own camcorder. I had never owned a camera. Lien had watched me beam when I saw plots reconciled without relying on tropes. She patiently watched full seasons of TV shows I had already seen just so that I could narrate why a metaphor used was brilliant. And she understood that I was drawn to a visual art of storytelling as a consumer. So she nudged me to try on a creator hat. It seems so obvious now, but at the time, I wouldn’t have been able to fathom being on the other end of the camera. A more artistic role was out of the question for both my professional and personal life.

“But why?” Lien asked, as she would often ask. And I had no answer, as I never did. So I played with my new toy and expanded my hobby in storytelling.

I would go on to give Lien the confidence to be more behind-the-scenes. It was then laughable to think that someone comfortable on stage would be uncomfortable behind the curtain. Lien was so present that she didn’t often coordinate logistics or strategize how to market an event. But she was great at it! Only then receiving affirmation for this talent and slowly building the courage to not always be under the literal spotlight. This allowed her to connect her vision for execution with what’s possible when it came to running a program or starting a new project.

Back in sophomore year, as Lien and I became acquainted, I found her loud, socially unaware, and all id. The next year when we became roommates, she laughed when I wouldn’t go with her to parties without a homemade dish or convenience store–purchased drink. But by senior year, our values merged.

See, as the poster child of an Enneagram 1 personality type, I think there are rules to be followed, a right and wrong way to behave when it comes to societal standards. Thank you cards must be sent out after fancy celebrations. Dress codes must be adhered to. When Lien’s decibel level expressed intense enthusiasm, I’d say, “I’m right here,” and would square my shoulders and cock my ear towards her to let Lien know that I could also hear her with an indoor voice. Her level of interest didn’t warrant that level of loudness. If we made food together, I shoved her into the common space with bowls to see if our other three roommates wanted any. It would have been rude not to. And by the time winter break rolled around and Lien went home to Boston, she came back annoyed with her family. She cited their inconsiderate shouting from one room to the other without knowing if anyone else in the house needed quiet. Lien even called her oldest sister rude for not taking into account whether other family members may have needed items from the grocery store. And after putting her travel things away, Lien asked, “Was I like that when you met me?” I smiled.

Right after college, we lived in a two-person house with three other friends in Bethesda, Maryland. In celebration of our adulthood and ability to collectively afford our first flatscreen TV, we threw a Halloween party, cramming disparate groups of friends into a tiny house located in a quiet suburban side street.

Ever the socialite, Lien’s energy matched that of our three other housemates and me combined. At the start of the night, several friends wandered our first floor, Karate Kid skeleton gang members intermingling with a few interactive slot machines and Bananas in Pajamas and other children’s TV show characters. They chose to self-tour because there wasn’t enough seating in our lonely living room couch and mismatched free-on-Craigslist dining room chairs.

While many more were yet to arrive, there were enough people hanging out to make me feel like a lame hostess. Then Lien, full-on method-acting as a firewoman, and adorned only with a plastic red helmet and a pair of black crepe paper strips taped on a white tee, swung around the corner of our staircase with a toy water gun. Guests screamed, “Put out the fire here!” And a game of make-believe changed the entire energy of the room.

I stopped trying to ask people how they’d made their costumes and got into character as a detective panda, inspecting everyone’s belongings for lost bamboo. Lien even watered our plants with her squirt gun, and I lined up pots to form a little jungle home. Guests came to visit me and ask if they could help furnish the new habitat. Lien was often the one to help me loosen up, and it affected the way I acted with friends and family alike.

Even while out and about, Lien modeled both how great she was at connecting with people and how I too could be just as engaging. Right after college, I volunteered with local festivals, most notably with the APA Film Festival in D.C. During my most committed era with that group, I was running a film screening that underperformed in press coverage. Two high-profile filmmakers flew in from LA to present their film, and more than I wanted to get the film out to the masses, I wanted the filmmakers to feel like they were attending a credible festival. Given my compulsion to put on a good show regardless of circumstance, I was desperate to fill theater seats. I ended up handing out flyers to strangers on the street, offering coupons from my personal wallet collection and giving out free water bottles to lure people into the theater.

Lien, on the other hand, approached the situation by reframing the problem. She watched me struggle outside for no more than five minutes and then about-faced to go back inside. At the time, I thought she abandoned me in a lost cause, but when I rejoined her, I saw that she had invested her time joking with the filmmakers and some of the bigger fans who had come to the screening early.
“Oh, you know who would appreciate this? Christine!” Lien said, the first words I heard as I walked into the theater’s hallway. “She travels for work a lot and has the hardest time adjusting to time zones. I think that’s why she’s always awake. It’s like her body doesn’t want to be the reason why she misses a meeting.”

Although she may not have intended this, Lien generously made space for me in the conversation.

After hyping the superfans by giving them even more time with the people behind a film they wanted to see, Lien made sure the filmmakers felt that love before and after the screening. She always made sure my name was infused in the conversation—asking me what I thought, whether I could do something for someone, and even egging me on to tell stories I previously thought had no general mass appeal. In addition to giving me enough opportunities to choose how I wanted to show up socially, she taught me that the number of butts in seats were much less valuable than memorable exchanges. The filmmakers left quoting some of the things their fans said and writing that they’d love to catch up outside of the festival to continue some of our conversation.

Looking back, it wasn’t just the constant encouragement and validation that shaped our end-of-college personalities. No, it was the bravery we had in opening up to each other and the world. I give full credit to Lien for bringing me out of my shell and granting me the courage to explore my creative interests. Her unwavering support made me comfortable with myself, encouraged me to let that identity shine in front of people I respected, and trying on hats that my childhood told me were too risky to wear. On Lien’s end, she became more present with others and widened her view of her own impact. She gained a different level of awareness. So as Lien helped me out of my seat and on to the world’s stage, I think I influenced Lien to widen the spotlight around her and see the whole stage.

We complemented each other’s learning journeys, understanding each other’s perspective and translating what the other didn’t pick up, eventually bringing our communication style and humor so close together that friends couldn’t tell us apart on the phone. Despite not spending a lot of time studying in classrooms, the Lien and Christine era represented the most educational part of college.

Want to read the rest of the book? Go here for purchase links.