Hosting Refugees from Milton

         Recently, storms have been plaguing Florida, first hitting Tallahassee a while ago, and now this week, a Category 5 hurricane headed straight for Orlando and Gainesville. As students from both UF and UCF had began to flee their cities to seek shelter at home, I received a sudden text from my long time buddy Jaime, who asserted that he would be stopping by for a few days to avoid the disaster. Faced with the decision between having to clean up my room or reject my friend of 16 years and send him back into the storm of death, I begrudgingly accepted his self-invite and prepared for his arrival.

    There isn't a whole lot to be said for his arrival. We embraced in my apartment's parking lot, caught up for a bit, and helped unpack all of his stuff from his car. He came bearing gifts for Wade and I, which included a monitor and a nice blanket :) I brought him along for my meeting at the Kudzu Review, got dinner with him, met up with Wade, and prepared for a chill night in. However, an unexpected guest had also arrived in Tallahassee to avoid the storm: our other buddy Nick! We had some laughs, then started watching some anime with the guys, as is customary for our weeknights here.

    There is something to be said about the company of friends that one doesn't realize until they reunite, and that is the vacancy in spirit that isn't felt until you see them again. Sitting in my room surrounded by friends that I grew up with, I felt a sense of peace and happiness that I didn't realize I had been missing, as if I had released a breath I didn't know I was holding in. Though I have my college friends, it is undeniable to me that my connection with them wasn't as deep as the one with the friends beside me, and I felt very happy to see my buddies again :).

    The next day was similarly chill, with me dragging Jaime along with me through my schedule since we couldn't leave him at home. After finishing up my classes for the day, we hit the library to grind through some work in order to free up time later. As we finished up our work, we met up with Wade and Nick again and ordered some pizzas for our nightly anime watching. However, since we are well familiar with the terrible delivery times by now, we opted to go to Salley Hall, our old stomping grounds, and play pool there by sneaking into the locked doors. Technically there was some light trespassing, but it was better than having to pay for a pool hall elsewhere!

    Once the pizza arrived, we repeated the events of the last night, with us all sharing good pizza, good laughs, and questionable viewing material. It's nice seeing my friends again, especially knowing that they'll be back in a few weeks for Talloween... but until then, this visit was more than enough for me :)