I Love Our Family

Before JumpStart, I read the testimonials of all the students who went through the same program. Every one of them went on and on about how the friends they made in JumpStart persisted for years and were still their best friends three-four years later. I should have taken heed when each and every testimonial was saying the same thing, but at every passage I scoffed, "uh huh. Friends for life from a two-week program... yeah right."

Leap forward to today, 45 days from the beginning of JumpStart and I am with the exact same group of people. These same people lived together through the night Durfee almost went into a coma from alcohol, Eirik going to the hospital, crazy emotional nights, and more. 45 days and we consider each other family members. Take, for example, the most recent of events: This past week, Matt and Hannah both thought it would be a good idea to take a ~three day break from each other, because as everyone knows, living with the same people every single day can be hard. Actually, we have already experienced that; there have been cracks and issues in our "family" here and there, but we have put effort to try to fix it. So, Matt and Hannah's idea went by everyone great, everyone was on board. A break would be good.

It would start Wednesday at 17h45. I sat down to dinner with Hannah at 19h00. Oops.
Well, it was a pre-planned "llama" dinner... and we are both llamas. Damn. So we did what any civilized people in a pact would do. Not talk to each other. Directly. Instead we argued through Amy. A scene was caused.

Side note: I walked with Kris back to Totem last night, and he was not too keen on the splitting of our family, even if just for ~three days.

We found out Kris needed cheering up (wow, I am painting him as a Damsel in Distress. That was not the case, he was just feeling a bit down/sick). What would any normal, non-talking, civilized family do? Break the silence, make a card, run to him!

So, Hannah, Michelle, Emely, Adam, Milkshake, and I meet, make a card, and run over to Totem to meet Matt (to sign the card) before seeing Kris. Except, rather than showing up at Kris' room with everyone all happy and the card signed, we find Kris walking TO his room. Again, of course, we are the most sensible people. Hannah and I decide to run to the common room to find Matt, he is not there, we run past Kris again to q'ələχən and hide in his hallway. The rest of the group joins us before Kris can come. Assembling into a heart, we realize that none of us have the best human sculpting skills, but we pull it off. With the note to one end of the hallway. Kris came in through the other side...
A quick, non-chaulante passing of the note and turning our heart towards him, we greet Kris with "open arms".

See? None of us can properly make a heart...

We got a bit better...

We bummed around in his room for a bit and chilled... about six of us on his bed. It was intense.


The break officially lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.
Moral of the story: our family cannot take planned breaks.






PS - We determined that Kris is the father, Michelle is the mother.
I am the crazy uncle.






I think Dash says it perfectly in The Incredibles:
"I love our family!"