It was Junior year gym class badminton and some students took the tournament very seriously. My two best friends and I were certainly not like those students. Suki and I made one team. Much to the chagrin of one of our fellow classmates, she was assigned to be Jude’s partner, but really, Jude was always part of us. When it came time for our teams to go head to head on the court, it was just about everything but a normal match. Suki and I, handling an obsession with Timothee Chalamet, were unable to steadily hold our rackets between our spurts of hysterical laughter while attempting to make English sound French. The student paired with Jude began to get frustrated, and Jude did not do much to turn this around. She began using her racket as a guitar, strumming the strings and singing with her tunes. This is when we all began to speak our fake French, and inspired by the badminton net, we created Janet. Like The Net, but much more French-esque.
At the time, I did not realize that this simple game would create a long-lasting friendship in the trio of me, Suki, and Jude. Over the last couple of years of high school, I bonded with what we call the Janet Trio, truly feeling like they understood me more than anyone else. Leaving them when heading off to college was one of the hardest goodbyes.
Come August, when we began to realize that we would not be five minutes away from one another, but instead living in different states, it worried us all. We promised letters, blogs, and consistent video chats. We were scared that distance would tear apart our beloved Janet. I cried many tears thinking about a life without my soul-sisters, but I have realized that college has only brought us closer together. Whenever we are all home, we plan great reunions in which we get to do all of our favorite activities like visiting our favorite ice cream spot or the best beach close to home. Being apart from my at-home besties has made me appreciate them and their beautiful, crazy, and undeniably powerful minds and spirits.
I write this after just getting off of a FaceTime call with the Janet crew, and I am feeling so full of love and life. We already have our spring break movie night planned out, and I cannot wait to fill them in on all of the college happenings. It turns out that being apart only gives us more to catch up on when we are together again! If you are worried about losing your friends when going to college, just remember that if the bond is positive and real, it will never leave you. That day in gym class did not seem so important at the time, but I realize now, it is the smallest things that make the biggest bonds. I will always be ⅓ of Janet no matter how far any of us venture.
