I’m sure I’ve mentioned the Orphans on the blog before. If I haven’t, then here is the context:
Freshman year of college, at orientation, four very confused young ladies ended up in the same stiflingly-hot old high school (tastefully serving as the arts building, a whole bus ride away from the rest of campus), and realized that they were all lost.
It was supposed to be the orientation for animation hopefuls, but something had gotten crossed and somehow I and these other girls had ended up in the mostly abandoned building a whole hour early. The professor that was supposed to be in charge of giving us a tour looked us up and down, and then announced that there weren’t enough of us to bother giving us the tour. He left us, stranded before the bus came, in an abandoned high school.
I made a joke about him orphaning us, and the next thing you know, we were exchanging contact information in a random abandoned room with nothing but a crusty door with the old pepsi logo painted onto it. Just like that, The Orphans were born.
We actually didn’t hang out very much in our freshman year—-we texted often, but I can count the number of times we actually hung out outside of class on one hand.
….but then, this year, we are only into October and we have hung out at least once a week every week, if not more. And it is DELIGHTFUL.
I’ve never been so genuinely close to such a group of people before. There’s Eleanor, who endures way too many short jokes for her to still like us and apparently lived like four minutes away from me for like, my entire life. There’s Ruby, who has thrown herself into life with a truly contagious zest (but is never beating the “written by a man” allegations. Sorry girl). And of course there’s Kenzi, who is soft-spoken but will constantly deliver the funniest line you’ve ever heard and is such a delight to chat with.
Look.
I’ve had friend groups before. I’ve had friend groups that started out amazing and then rotted from the inside out with the discovery of boys and social hierarchies that should only exist in movies. I’ve had friend groups who treated me like an accessory. I’ve had friend groups that have been wonderful but only ever knew half of me, because there was a side of me that just didn’t make the cut.
But the Orphans?
I told my parents this, but going to bed after hanging out with them feels like going to bed with a little ball of light in my chest.
They are funny, sweet, chaotic, and genuine people. There’s no one else I’d rather get lost in a corn maze, get flinched into the walls of a haunted house, draw funny cartoons, blow up the group chat, and hike the mountains with.
There’s no one else who made me feel so happy to realize that I might be 20 now, but I finally found a friend group who just wants to play pretend and have a nice time together.
It sucks, because all good things must come to a pause. Ruby and Kenzi are serving their respective missions come wintertime, which is part of why we’re cramming every available hour into our schedules right now.
I know it’s going to hurt to lose them (Eleanor and I are going to have to carry the vibe for an entire 18 months on our own, which we are ready to do but emotionally unwilling). But I guess, all I can think is this:
How lovely to experience something so wonderful that it hurts to let go.
There were some collective tears shed tonight, (while writing notes to put into a gift for Kenzi, who was sick and couldn’t hang out with us), because we realized how little time we had left.
But OH WELL! Guys, I don’t know when you’ll read this (or if, I’m a very wordy writer), but all I can say is that it might have taken us until college to find our people, but we DID, and it’s AWESOME. I’m SO GLAD TO HAVE MET ALL OF YOU AND YOU’LL HAVE TO FIGHT TO BE RID OF ME.
Goodnight to all, especially to my wonderful Orphans. May we continue to confuse and alarm everyone who hears us referred to that name out of context.
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