It’s the morning after.
My hair is knotted in last night’s hairspray, mascara is crusted on my eyelids and crumbs from my A&W 5-piece-chicken-strips-with-honey-mustard are inside my sheets. I have 28 messages from the “Chat-n-Chug” group chat, three missed calls from two of my friends, my friend slept over with the trash next to her ‘just-in-case,’ and I feel like death.
Time to debrief!
We gather at our usual spot in Life Building, each of us carrying our caffeine of choice — from a Red Bull to an Iced Capp — and my go-to hangover remedy, the Jeremy sandwich. We begin filling in the blanks.
Friend A made three people fall in love with them last night. Friend B ran into their favorite situationship. I ate the cheesiest, most delicious mac-n-cheese of my entire life. Friend C is not awake yet.
We tell each other we never want to go out again, only to gather at Life a week later for another debrief, begging for a movie night next week instead.
Each week, if not most days, we meet to update each other on our latest crushes, our break-downs that morning, the hard exam we feel like we failed, awkward moments we need a consultation about, an advice session and that time you ran into your ex and asked how have you been? twice in a row because you were so nervous you didn’t know what to say after he answered.
We’ve seen each other cry over failed friendships, weird situations where the mixed signals gave us whiplash and relationships we stayed in for too long. We walk through the entire scenario, setting the scene with side plots and tangents (it’s a wild ride that can take several hours) until we come to some resolution.
There’s never any judgment between us. That doesn’t mean we always have the same perspective, but that’s the beauty of the debrief. We can break the situation down piece by piece, ask questions, offer advice, hype-our-girl-up and let them know we have their back.
We always end up laughing, even if we begin the debrief crying. We are obnoxiously loud laughers (and everyone in Life probably hates us). And whenever we experience or witness something mildly funny we look forward to our next debrief session.
The worst moment of our day becomes not so terrible anymore once we all get together. The debrief is all about putting our mental spirals into perspective.
Of course the debriefs are not always anxiety-driven, often we just want an update on life in general, even if it is the most mundane stuff like what is it about tuna melts that you actually like? During the debrief anything and everything is possible — we’ve planned ‘girl’s trips’ to the Bahamas, high-tea over the weekend, celebrated locking down internships or even just going to all our classes that week.
The debrief is all about supporting one another. It’s a true testament of friendship and represents how much we enjoy each other’s company, no matter the lack of judgment and crazy scenarios we get ourselves into.
Even when we’re too busy to see each other during the week, I know when the weekend comes we’ll be right back in our usual spot: Jeremey sandwiches devoured, head-ache unbearable, Red Bull keeping us conscious, laughing hysterically.