So I have this group of friends, right, and when I say friends I literally mean cheesy sitcom How I Met Your Mother/Community/Parks and Recreation F.R.I.E.N.D.S. They’re fantastic, they’re like a second family to me-

-and they’re all moving.

It sounds cliche to say I expect us all to stay together as a group forever… but I sort of do. We came together quickly, and forged some weirdly deep bonds. None of us expected to be friends, myself the least. I didn’t want more friends (I know, it sounds horrible). I was perfectly content to slide through college with minimal fuss or fanfare.

Instead, a casual friend I made at the end of my sophomore year turned into a good friend, and wanted to introduce me to all the other ragtag, independent-minded, loner-types she somehow attracted to her. The first few times we all hung out, we were like a group of cats who have all taken up residence in the same area, but were too stubborn to acknowledge the other’s presence.

Slowly, we warmed up to one another. As a group, we fell into easy camaraderie, but even beyond that we started to form independent friendships within the group. Although one person brought us together, she didn’t serve as the linchpin of the group, and we created strong bonds with each other as individuals. What started out as a unanimous, unspoken social nicety for a person we all cared about independently of one another, melted into an unintended family.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was probably the most unwilling to accept their friendship initially. I was scared and complacent. I thought that if I didn’t become friends with them now, it wouldn’t hurt later when they left me behind, and I was the one who was too attached still. I’m incredibly tenacious and I honor friendships, so making friends isn’t easy for me. I look for a commitment that lasts longer than a school year, and these people already had a countdown on their heads. It wasn’t for me.

They coaxed me in though; they quietly and steadily built up my personal relationships with them as individuals, and without realizing it I was part of a family. We support each other, encourage one another, and worked together to help further our goals. (#SQUADGOALS) I decided to appreciate the time we did have together, and enjoy every minute of it.

We played Cards Against Humanity every week, we got horribly lost in a corn maze, we watched bad movies together, we spent spring break shacked up in a cabin in Brooklyn, Michigan, drinking and playing a psychiatric board game from the 80’s, we went to trivia night at a local bar and bonded with the announcer; we had classes together and homework to do.

Then, the inevitable happened.

Someone moved.

We all knew it was coming eventually, but it hit kind of sudden. And by sudden I mean she secret moved. Not intentionally (which makes it almost worse), she was only supposed to be gone a week, and then come back, and she really wouldn’t be moving moving until after graduation, but that’s not what happened. One day she left for a job interview then a week later it was ‘Oh, wait, I’m staying.’

To top it all off, she also wasn’t sure she was even coming back for graduation.

It was a rough few weeks, but we rallied. Graduation came, and brought our friend back with it. Then summer came, and our weekly Cards Against Humanity night’s turned into Applying For Job’s days, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We took day trips, marathoned TV shows, and cooked food together; the graduates would try and convince one another to move to where they wanted to move so we wouldn’t have to be apart. (One in Washington D.C., one in Chicago, one in Denver, one in Seattle, and me in Michigan.) We planned ways to stay in touch.

That’s what I want. That’s all I want. I want us to stay friends. I want us to beat the odd’s and to put in the effort, and stay friends. I want all of us loners and aloof(ish) assholes to just be there for each other still. It won’t be the same, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be as good. I want to see their weddings, and their new jobs, their dogs and cats, new apartments, new hobbies, new house. I want there to be some kind of magnetic pull once more than one of us is in the same place, because if there’s at least two then the rest will follow. I want our consultation company (Bitch Rhetoric) with a bar in the front (Rough Drafts) to be something we plan for a long time, and maybe even more than half-seriously consider.

I believe, though. I believe we can do this. We can be a large group of friends who manage to stay in touch, and be a part of each other’s lives. Maybe why I’m writing this is to remind myself to love them, because I do, and not to be complacent in my life. Without them, my year would have been worse. Without them, I wouldn’t have become the person I am today.

Our friendship is going to last, I can feel it.