I went to a bachelorette party last weekend in Chicago. My college roommate from my freshman year is getting married in May so we had her party in Chicago. For the record, Jen (the bride) should win an award for living with me freshman year. The reasons for this award are threefold: 1) I’d never shared a room with someone prior to college and the adjustment was tough, 2) I was a total slob and 3) I had a boyfriend who was always in our room. Bless her heart.
So Torey (another college friend), Jen’s matron of honor, planned the party in Chicago because basically, it’s more fun than Omaha where most of the girls live. There were about 10 girls there but for me, it was just about seeing three of them – Jen Betterman (bride), Jen Sines and Torey Reed. These three girls were my closest friends my first two years of college while we were in the dorms. We had to live in the dorms freshman and sophomore years because we went to a Catholic university and everyone knows that sinning only happens off campus while the dorms are vessels of purity. Amen. Anyway, these girls know more about my life during those two years than just about anyone else. And they remember EVERYTHING! Good lord, every dumb decision I made during that time was brought up and evaluated last weekend. I would have been pissed except for the fact that no one was spared. No detail was left out. No embarrassing moment not revisted in graphic detail. And what’s also great is that these girls remember lots of moments that I couldn’t – either because I just forgot or because I purged it from my memory on purpose or because I was so drunk, I never had a memory of it in the first place. We laughed about hook-ups, break-ups, breakdowns, down-and-outs, out of town trips, trips and falls, falling in love, falling out of love, getting married, not getting married, thinking of who we could have married, being happy about people we didn’t marry, having babies, wanting babies, thinking we’re not ready for babies, buying homes, selling homes, getting jobs, quitting jobs, how are parents are doing, how we’re becoming our parents, how we wish we were together more often, how we need to make more of an effort to see eachother and most of all, how when we see eachother these days, it’s effortless. Meaning it just like it was 10 years ago when we met.
I remember sometime during our freshman year sitting in Jen S.’s room talking about which girl would get married first. Our prediction was Jen Krzyaniak (now Sines), then ToreyBose (now Reed), then Jen Betterman (soon-to-be Drake), and last but certainly not least, me. I always knew I would be last but I’m not sure why because at the time, I was dating Matt, the man I was certain I was going to marry. Certain. We went to a spa on Saturday and while the four of us were getting our toes done, I mentioned that our marriage timeline was accurate. This launched a discussion about what life would be like if we’d married the guys we THOUGHT we were going to marry. But as I sat there chatting with the girls while we were in our fuzzy bathrobes, still high on the massages we’d just gotten and thoroughly enjoying our pedis I couldn’t help but wonder how different my life would have been if the three of them had not come in to it.
When I decided to go to Creighton during my senior year of high school, I thought Becki was coming with me so I wasn’t nervous at all. Sometime during the spring semester, Becki decided to stay in Colorado and go to UNC. While I was terrified of going by myself, it never occurred to me not to go.
I met Betterman the first day I moved into the dorms. From the outside, she looked like a Barbie to me. She was this skinny little thing with long blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. I wanted to hate her but we clicked instantly and laughed a ton. At the time she was living with a psycho named Lynn and I was living with a psycho named Sarah. After about a week of this living arrangement, Jen and I determined that we had to live together and rid ourselves of the psychos. Within a month, we were sharing a room. We used to watch 90210 and eat entire bags of Lays Cheddar and Sour Cream chips. We’d fight with our boyfriends and to get over it we'd watch Thelma & Louise(actually just the scene where Brad Pitt does Geena Davis and his abs look SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good) while eating raw Ramen Noodles because we were too lazy to boil water. It was fantastic.
I met Torey while hanging out in the Neutral Zone. The NZ was the lobby area on our floor between the girls and boys wings of the dorm. Ours was a progressive Catholic school where boys and girls could live on the same floor but were separated by a zone of “neutralness” which would keep us from seeing one another after the midnight hour. Amen. Torey was there “studying” one day and I came in to “study” as well. Mostly, we just wanted to see the boys. At least that’s why I was there. We started talking and I just remember two things – she had a bow in her hair that on anyone else would have been cheesy but she could pull it off and she was really funny. Torey had this “sweet girl from a farm town” thing going for her but once I got to know her better I found out that we shared a love of gansta rap and Target. I’d found another person at Creighton who knew the words to “Gin & Juice”, “Nuthin but a G-Thang”, “California Love” and our favorite “Hypnotize” – it was like I’d found my musical soulmate! And she had a bow in her hair!
I met Jen Krzyaniak in the elevator heading to class one day. She was this tiny little thing with a super loud voice. She was cracking up laughing at our friend Cy who was talking about a camel. She also lived on the 8th floor (Betterman and I were on the 9th floor, Torey and Kraz were on the 8th) so I’d see her with Torey a lot. Jen was hilarious and constantly talking about her hometown of Peru, IL. The boys on the 8th floor loved her and would stop by her room at night to sing her songs. Jen also had holiday decorations for every holiday ever. Her mom, Crafty Carol, was always sending packages with decorations for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day, Easter, etc and there were always cookies too. Once Crafty Carol found out that I didn’t like chocolate, she started making Snickerdoodles for me which, despite their name, are actually Snicker-free. Jen also introduced me to May Day. I’d never heard of such a thing prior to meeting her but our freshman year I woke up to a basket of daffodils outside of my door on May 1st. The basket was made out of newspaper and it was the cutest thing ever. When I asked Jen about it she said that it was tradition on May 1st. I’m pretty sure this is just something Crafty Carol made-up but I loved it.
I had such a great time seeing them and even though our lives couldn’t be more different right now, we were still the same four girls giggling and making fun of one another. I feel so lucky to know them and after 10 years of friendship, still have them in my life…even if our visits aren’t as often as we’d like.
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