College Reunions

My college friends live all over what feels like the universe but is actually just this country (plus Uganda. Michelle is in Uganda.)

We didn’t plan this well. I mean, we met in college, quickly realized our best friend soulmate-ship, lived together, studied abroad together, danced on tables played board games together, and then, poof! Graduation. New cities. Big girl jobs. Heavy hearts.

Denver, Chicago, LA, New York, Boston, San Francisco, DC — we live in all of these cities with not much overlap, so it’s not like a few of us can all get on a plane to one city where most of us are. We’re everywhere!

Hiking in Santa Barbara last March.

Our story is not unique. It happens to plenty of people these days, and just like it does for you, life goes on for us too. In fact, life rocks! — jobs, blogs (here, here, here), adventures, et cetera. It’s all enough to make my heart swell with pride, except that our daily relationships are reduced to massive email chains covering everything from gun control stances to Jennifer Lawrence v. Anne Hathaway chatter in one email chain. We group text our opinions on major events, like the Oscars and Michelle Obama’s bangs, as they happen. And Instagram and the occasional phone call keep us up to date on each other’s life happenings.

While these emails and group texts are among the funniest and most thought provoking in my inboxes, long distance friendship sucks. Being able to meet for happy hour once a week, heck, even once a month, seems on par with winning the lottery. 

It’s been three years since college (no. it. hasn’t.), but it only took one year for us grow indignant about our lack of Cranium play time and to start planning annual college reunions, usually taking place over a long weekend and hosted somewhere new or in someone’s current city, where we make a dormitory out of someone’s teeny apartment, like the good ol’ days.

There were a few small get-togethers (two or three of us) in 2010 — the year we graduated and moved to new cities.

Then in 2011 we were ambitious. Four of us made our way to Las Vegas, where, in typical form, we talked each other’s ears off, carved a place on the dance floor, and lounged poolside. We also walked into a club at the exact same time that Bobby Brackins jumped up on a stage/table with a microphone and performed his magnum opus, 143. It was gold, and we cleverly referred to this trip as “Nevada 2011.”

The next year — last year– we got 5 of us together at my place in Santa Barbara, It rained, but we barely  noticed. Brunch, board games, and the silver screen debut of The Hunger Games were the reigning themes.

The Hunger Games debut at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara.

Which brings us to this year — the year of our biggest reunion yet. This Labor Day we’re headed to one of my favorite cities, Chicago, where we’ll make a home on Jorie’s floor. We’ve got six confirmed and three maybes.Fingers crossed for the maybes.

I hope we always make a point to get together once a year, and more often when it’s possible. We talk regularly about the days down the road when we’ll hopefully be able to afford tropical and international college reunion trips. I think we’ve got a few more years of domestic debauchery responsible partying, but, one day, someday, soon, we’ll update our Twitter statuses with pictures from #Ibiza2024. Stay tuned for a full recap of #Reunion2013 come September. Get here soon, September!

How do you keep in touch with your out-of-town friends and family? How many cities do you and your friends cover?