This past weekend, I drove home with my three best friends from college. Two of them participated in the Women’s Half Marathon in New York City, 20 minutes from my house, so we decided to all go down for the weekend to make an adventure out of it.

Truthfully, although at some point throughout all of our individual friendships my friends have met my parents to varying degrees, I was nervous to have them all there and interacting at once. My friends mean the world to me, but we all act like weirdos around each other and are pretty goofy -- sometimes quite irritating to other people. I was anxious because I wanted everyone I love so deeply to get along as well as I do with all of them, and I worried that maybe there would be initial awkwardness between parents and friends.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. My family is wonderful in that we all love each other immensely, and also love to tease each other – about everything. My parents incorporated my friends right away into this fold, cracking jokes and making sarcastic comments that my friends immediately picked up on, tossing jokes back at my parents and telling long-winded stories. We spent both nights of the weekend laughing throughout our lengthy dinners, and I felt so immeasurably content. My friends kept commenting on how much they loved being with my family, and vice versa.

Although we love Colby, we were all sad to leave. It was a paradisaical weekend.Bringing your closest friends home from school is like taking a big step in a relationship; the most important people in your life meet one another and, hopefully, get along. Mine loved each other, I’m glad to say. I gave my friends a tour of where I grew up, my high school friends’ houses, our old hangout spots, my favorite restaurants.

As we passed important places from my childhood I recounted story after story, often spontaneously remembering the significance of each moment only as I pointed out different things around town. Seeing my town and my life from the perspective of a tourist or an outsider was really interesting, and I loved being able to take a trip down memory lane, as cliché as that is. I don’t often rehash those old stories and memories when I’m home on my own, but they all jumped to mind when I was pointing things out one by one.

It was a wonderful weekend of nostalgia, exploring, laughter, and love. Spring has sprung in New York, and we spent the days outside in the sunlight, photosynthesizing in my backyard, my dog asleep in the grass nearby. I couldn’t have asked for a happier weekend: the familiarizing of some of my favorite people with each other, the much-needed dose of snuggling with my dog, the spring, and more fun than I could have imagined possible.