Started Off Sorting Keys, Ended in Love
"This day no love potion, no pre-made gifts, no eye contact across the room or campus. This time it was 8 hours, 2,000 keys, and her and I." -Julius Honey '18
"This day no love potion, no pre-made gifts, no eye contact across the room or campus. This time it was 8 hours, 2,000 keys, and her and I." -Julius Honey '18
Julius Honey '18 & Mecca Harris '20
In the hottest and most jam-packed summer of Bryn Mawr’s history, un-official college President Lisa Zernike chose to connect us both by sorting the dorm keys that had been returned for the end of the year!
Move – In Day: 2016 – Mecca was sitting in Rockefeller lounge along with the rest of the grade for the mandatory “PSAs”. Julius stepped up to address the room regarding Affinity Groups and cultural communities at BMC. Julius also saw Mecca but was convinced she wasn’t feeling him.
August 2016 – Julius was preparing the welcome gifts for all incoming Black self-identified folks. It is tradition to prepare a gift for the frosh to welcome them to campus and to find Sisterhood* at Fall Frolic. When preparing the gits, he came across Mecca Naeem Harris, and thought "what a beautiful name." It wasn’t until February of 2017 that we, at least from Julius' perspective, had been in the same room. He remembers: "We were preparing for the art show that year, and out of all the things going on, I remember her eyes looking at me. This becomes a reoccurring theme I might add, the way she looks at me. It has remained the same with the same effect. After this meeting and the starting match, we went to a party, my resident job as bartender resumed and I thought I had put something special in the drink that night. Turns out I did, as Mecca calls it my love potion, though it didn’t work between her and I. And that night I watched her kiss someone else."
Fast forward to the end of the next year – Julius was preparing for graduation and, like it always seemed to happen with us, it was the right time and even righter place. We happened to be working at the same place for the summer with the Big Three in Conferences and events (shout-out to Lisa, Deb, and Kim!). This day no love potion, no pre-made gifts, no eye contact across the room or campus. This time it was 8 hours, 2,000 keys, and the two of us.
That day set us up for a 5-year journey of being each other's best friends, loving, longing, and yearning in the ways we did back then. It took us 5 years to find our love was geared towards something else; nonetheless, it was right on time.
Our favorite memory: driving around the campus in the summer, on a golf cart, delivering mail 😊
Pronouns: Julius: he/they; Mecca: she/her
AMOs, Clubs, or Sports: Julius: Sisterhood* & Zami+; Mecca: Track, Sisterhood* Zami+
Class Color: Julius: dark blue, Mecca: light blue
