Amber Kohl, fifth-semester civil engineering major from Southington, Conn.
Tell me about the very first memory you have of being excited about something.
“I know some of my very first memories are from preschool. I remember being in the preschool classroom with some of my friends and, obviously, we would have different sets of time where you’d be doing different things, and I remember one of the things I always looked forward to the most was reading time. One of my longest friends, who I’m actually still friends with now, she was in my preschool class, and I remember we would go up these little stairs and it’s like this little secluded area and you could go read books. I hadn’t learned how to read yet, but she had, and I remember she would read to me. So, I definitely remember being excited when it was that time.”
What about that experience was exciting for you? Was it the reading part, or was it the quality time part?
“I think it was both. I always really loved reading. That was always a huge part of my childhood, like my parents reading to me. And then once I went to kindergarten and learned how to read, then I was off to the races. I was reading so much, I always loved it, and I still do. And also, definitely the quality time with someone that I really liked and looked up to because I was like ‘Wow, she can read, she’s cool.’ I always felt a connection with her, so it was definitely the combination of those two things that little me was like ‘Oh, so fun!’”
Tell me about your favorite memory with a friend.
“Oh my gosh. I have known her since I was two, so there’s so many favorite memories. I have to think.
I guess — this isn’t like a specific memory — but her and I live really close together, so anytime we go to another friend’s house or go out to do something we always carpool together. So, some of my best memories are just riding in the car with her and putting on songs. She’ll share music that she’s listening to that’s new. I’ll share music that’s new that I’m listening to. One of our running jokes is, almost every single time I’m in the car with her I’ll Rick Roll her. Almost every single time we’re in the car together, I’ll put that on aux. And she’s always like, ‘come on!’ It’s so silly. So just, so many fond memories of that, just chatting and like classic carpool, you know.”
What about her makes her such a good friend?
“She just knows who she is and she just has such a good, solid presence about her. She treats the people she’s around very well and just is very, very respectful and kind. [She] is very, very easygoing, but also won’t put up with other people’s bad behavior. Like, if someone isn’t being a good friend, she would call someone out on that. [She] also is consistently a good friend to others. For example, one time in middle school — we weren’t as close to middle school — but I was going through some friend group drama and stuff like that, so I ended up sitting at lunch all by myself. We hadn’t spoken like in a while, but she noticed I was sitting at lunch by myself and was like, ‘come over and sit with us.’ [It was] just so nice to notice that and do something about it because a lot of people would just leave it be, especially if we weren’t as close during that time period.”
What was the ultimate moment for you two that made your friendship how it is now?
“That was a moment that I was like ‘Oh wow, I know we haven’t talked a lot recently, but you’re still a really cool person’ I think what really solidified our relationship to how it is now is we would ride the bus together in high school. Every morning, we would come onto the bus and have new jokes to share with each other and new things about our lives. It’s always very silly, sometimes banter, sometimes silly jokes and internet references kind of thing. I think that experience definitely brought us closer together. So, we kind of continued that carpooling type thing. Once we started to drive, we kept carpooling, [and] even now we still do that. [We’re] just trying to stay in each other’s lives. She goes to a different school, so sometimes the only thing that we’ll communicate for a little bit of time will just be sending TikToks back and forth. It’s something almost stupid and silly — just like these little things that keep the connection going. Then we’ll call each other or send a little voice memo with a life update and get into some deeper stuff. I feel like it’s that balance of literally just being able to talk about anything.”
What has your relationship with her taught you about friendship?
“I think it’s taught me that the people that are worth being friends with will stick around. If someone wants to be friends with you and wants to stay in your life, they will. As long as you’re both making an effort to stay friends and have a connection it can stay strong even through many years. Even if you have some time that you kind of drift apart you definitely can be able to find your way back to the people that you are like most drawn to or connect with.
I think it’s also cool because I have some relationships that are really strong as well that are a lot newer, so it’s really interesting to see how there can be friendships that are really old and that are really new that can both be super meaningful. It’s just really special to have a friend that’s known you your literal entire life and that you’ve grown up with it. It’s definitely a rare thing because there are a lot of other friends that I was close with from when I was really little up until more like middle school, high school time, and those friendships haven’t necessarily lasted past then. It’s really special to have a friendship that literally is almost 20 years old, which is crazy.”