I’ve written about them once, and I’ll write about them again because no one can stop me. Named after the avocado emoji that Bianca Schultz randomly made the icon of our group chat, this band of fools is composed of me, Bianca, Celena Pirkl, Kendall Ho, and Kiarra D’Arcangelo. They bring so much light to my life, especially with the incredibly terrible Instagram posts that are sent to everyone (often by Bianca). We are terrible at planning anything —we have been trying to get a hot pot with all of us together for the past year and have absolutely failed—and yet managed to pull it together for all of us to go on a senior trip. We suffer through math together and we laugh at bad jokes, which are the only jokes any of us are capable of making.
These people, who have been with me since elementary school, know me best, perhaps to a disturbing degree (but that’s only because I am incapable of not telling them everything). But soon, all of us will scatter to the wind for college, and I will be around a 17 hour drive from Kiarra, who’s moving the furthest from me. I have never not been close to them, in distance as well as friendship, and it will be a test on my sanity.
So this article is a tribute to the people who mean the absolute most to me. Bianca, who I beefed with in kindergarten before we became friends in 1st grade, who remembers everything to ever happen with a scary degree of detail. Celena, who brought a kazoo to school on my birthday and played it in the middle of the hall, who I will never let forget about the terrible rice balls she made in 7th grade. Kendall, who was the only one to actually dress up like Celena when we decided to, to mess with Celena, who manages to understand me whenever I talk, even though I have no diction and speak at the speed of light. Kiarra, who I always see during my 7th period going out to run because she enjoys it (I don’t know why, but slay), who, despite never having been ice skating before, managed to pick it up incredibly quickly. You all have made my life so much better than I ever could have imagined, and I love all of you so much.