8:30 p.m., Pacific Daylight Time

It was one of those miserable Sundays during February last year. The Superbowl had passed and I did not have an Iggles game to watch. I didn't have a boyfriend or a Valentine's Day to plan. I wasn't training for any marathons or half marathons. I rose early, sans hangover, and had nothing to conquer except a pot of coffee and the Washington Post.

Most of my friends were in relationships. And my parents, 150 miles away, were probably playing golf or at the movies. My brother rarely calls to begin with, and my phone didn't ring the entire day. I held the phone and stared at in disbelief a few times, but I didn't do my part by locating someone in my address book and hitting send, either. I did not leave my 400 square foot apartment - not even to do laundry downstairs in the basement or to walk the trash to the chute - for an entire day.

My transformation from a child who wore a "Motormouth" T-Shirt into a woman capable of (and kind of enjoying?) a day without words was completed that Sunday. And ironically, still naive as ever, I thought I had conquered loneliness.

But tonight JWC, my roommate, rocked the GMAT. She was taking it for the second time and really needed to do well. She did. And I'm really proud of her. She got back home at 8:30 PM Pacific dying to call someone with whom she could share the good news. But they are al back East. In Boston, New York, DC and in her case, Rhode Island. And at 11:30 PM Eastern on a "work night", they are asleep. I so desperately wanted to comfort her, being able to empathize with her completely. Sometimes every hour of my day feels like 8:30 PM PDT. But that was just it. Despite my best intentions, I am not her best friend from college or high school. Or her neighbor from home. And I am not her sister. I am an acquaintance of an acquaintance of a friend whose monthly rent check won't bounce.

"Turns out not where but who you're with that really matters." I am desperately trying to get Dave Matthews out of my head.

I have only been here six weeks. Six weeks at college and all I really had was LEF. I had not yet even met LGA or EAB or HEG or ACN. I had only exchanged an occasional good morning with GPSH. I had quasi awkward conversations with AFS and CLG and LCJ. I was not so sure I liked LEJ. I had sort of developed a strange crush on ESB and JRW, but it would be another entire year before I'd fall head over heels in friendship love for MJC. And KJS and CCE. Another two before I'd develop that awkward love for JBB.

Six weeks in DC and I had not yet learned how loyal and loving MMG is. EMI wasn't even there yet. And SKB and I were just getting started.

The memories of college sometimes feel more like a great two weeks at summer camp than four years of my life. And it is easy to forget that it took time for those friendships I found there, as well as those I found in DC, to congeal into what feels like my second family. Conversely, in this city of East Coast Transplants that is always on the move, a place where the weeks seem to fly by, it is challenging to accept the slow passage of time.

And I am far from having conquered loneliness.