Family, Too
Aside from my biological family, there are two specific groups of friends who I consider my family. My camp family and my Gamma Phi family. Of course, I can't leave out my best friend Andrew from grade school or Rachel and Claire, my 2 best friends from high school, but camp and college are two essential places in my life that have given me friends I never would've become close to anywhere else. Camp people have an unspoken bond that is indescribable. We get paid to act like children while taking care of children, and nothing brings people together like 10 weeks of living together in a bubble so far removed from the real world. I've learned more about life in 10 years of going to camp than I ever could have absorbed from school or home. From living away from home to experiencing the politics and hierarchy behind a business to diving for a fake dead body in the lake and cleaning up children's poop weekly, I found people who I couldn't imagine living without, and they surrounded me for 3 months every year. The true test of our camp family has been living the other 9 months of the year away from each other, sometimes halfway across the world. This summer, one of our best friends visited from England, and weeks later, another from New Zealand. Just before summer ended, me my brother and sister got our old "East Camp crew" together, and the 7 of us ate dinner together and hung out just like we used to, although we hadn't seen each other as a group in 2 years.
What other safe and fun environment has allowed me to become friends with people who live all over the world? God bless Potosi, MO for bringing a crazy group of camp counselors together who turned into family.
The second and most important sector of my family of friends is my college family. The people who make USC my home away from home. This starts with my Gamma Phi sisters, and extends to certain classes like EDLP and U101, and Dance Marathon. I guess I could say the amount of people in my Gamecock family has #NoLimits, and that's be true, but there are some groups that stand out to me. (Side note: Isn't it funny how we don't like to be labeled and sorted? I think receiving the label of being in a specific group is extremely valuable when it means being part of someone's family. We choose to put ourselves into groups because it makes feel at home when we are with people who care about the same things we do, and they care about us, too. There is already a small foundation of trust there, which can make all the difference.) Sorry, I'm back now.
My Gamma Phi family started with getting a Big, and consequently a Grandbig and Great Grandbig. They take care of me and let me be 100% me 100% of the time. I look up to them so much. Somewhere in the midst of first semester of freshman year, my close group of friends pulled me in, and I finally realized what my camp friends had been telling me about how you meet people in weird ways and it happens so quickly but eventually, you really do make your best friends in college. The best year when I got my Little, who is an invaluable part of my life, all my friends wanted all of our Littles to be friends. Sure, none of them needed our help, but it was a dream come true when they all actually liked each other and wanted to be friends on their own. The best thing about my friend groups as a whole are that we can make fun of each other in a light-hearted way but we actually care about each other in the most honest and genuine way. We feel like we've known each other for years but we are always willing to learn more and strengthen our friendships, and we try our best to be inclusive.
This is my daily reminder to myself of how insanely lucky I am to constantly be surrounded by a family of friends. All I have to do is continually work on being a good friend, and reach out when I need help.
What other safe and fun environment has allowed me to become friends with people who live all over the world? God bless Potosi, MO for bringing a crazy group of camp counselors together who turned into family.
The second and most important sector of my family of friends is my college family. The people who make USC my home away from home. This starts with my Gamma Phi sisters, and extends to certain classes like EDLP and U101, and Dance Marathon. I guess I could say the amount of people in my Gamecock family has #NoLimits, and that's be true, but there are some groups that stand out to me. (Side note: Isn't it funny how we don't like to be labeled and sorted? I think receiving the label of being in a specific group is extremely valuable when it means being part of someone's family. We choose to put ourselves into groups because it makes feel at home when we are with people who care about the same things we do, and they care about us, too. There is already a small foundation of trust there, which can make all the difference.) Sorry, I'm back now.
My Gamma Phi family started with getting a Big, and consequently a Grandbig and Great Grandbig. They take care of me and let me be 100% me 100% of the time. I look up to them so much. Somewhere in the midst of first semester of freshman year, my close group of friends pulled me in, and I finally realized what my camp friends had been telling me about how you meet people in weird ways and it happens so quickly but eventually, you really do make your best friends in college. The best year when I got my Little, who is an invaluable part of my life, all my friends wanted all of our Littles to be friends. Sure, none of them needed our help, but it was a dream come true when they all actually liked each other and wanted to be friends on their own. The best thing about my friend groups as a whole are that we can make fun of each other in a light-hearted way but we actually care about each other in the most honest and genuine way. We feel like we've known each other for years but we are always willing to learn more and strengthen our friendships, and we try our best to be inclusive.
This is my daily reminder to myself of how insanely lucky I am to constantly be surrounded by a family of friends. All I have to do is continually work on being a good friend, and reach out when I need help.
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