It’s been 28 years since I first met these lovely ladies.  The year was 1986, it was the first day of college, and we all lived in the Tree Dorms at Bentley College.  Right away I hit it off with one of my roommates, Doreen, from Lewiston, ME.

When it came time to go up for dinner that first night, we walked to the other end of the Tree Dorms to get a friend of Doreen’s from high school, Gail.  Gail’s new roommate was Lee Ann and there was a girl named Kristen across the hall from them.  Kristen had a friend, Katey, whom she spent many a summer on the Cape with. Confused?  You shouldn’t be, it was all very easy and we became fast friends.

At the same time, right above Doreen & I in Birch Hall, lived Sue D., Sue Marce, Laura, and Cori who also became fast friends.  We eventually merged our groups together when we all scored on-campus apartments in Kresge Hall for sophomore year.  Scarpa and her friends also joined us right around this time. The rest is history, we’ve all lived together or across the hall from one another at some point or another either during college or after we graduated.

Yesterday was our Annual Bentley Girls Christmas Swap.  It’s funny none of us ended up in the same town, we’re spread out all over Eastern Mass, but that does not stop us.  We all get together probably 2-3 times a year for dinner and then the annual Christmas gathering.   It’s not enough and I always feel like I need more time, yesterday I could’ve stayed another 3 or 4 hours…

These lovely ladies are awesome, each and every one of them, and I am so lucky to have them in my life.  Sure, our meeting back in 1986 was part luck, part coincidence, but we chose to stay together all these years.  Smart girls!