FEBRUARY 2018

Vennela Velanki:
An Ode to Friendship

The Village. That’s what we call ourselves. All girls. All with our own dramatic backstory. All having a heart of gold and the stomach capacity of a blue whale. We met the first week of school Freshman year and have been together ever since. What originally began as a combination of forced hangouts, labeled group chats, and many awkward silences morphed into a bond like I’ve never experienced—A friendship I’d take a bullet for.

There’s eight of us. Sometimes I think we’re like Santa’s reindeers: There’s Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen (me), Comet and Cupid and Donald and Blitzen. And all of us encompass a bit of Rudolph and his extraordinary red nose.

When I first came to college, I had very different expectations for how my life would pan out. I purposely chose U of M and its wide array of students so that I wouldn’t be locked into one circle of people, and so that I could float my way from person to person. I wanted to be a drifter. I wanted to feel independent. But during orientation itself, I met two future members of the Village who also double as my current roommates. And I’ve never been more grateful for a shattered dream. I’ve never been more okay with needing others. From nights full of sad tears and broken hearts to heated arguments over who took the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer, jam sessions in Alice Lloyd music rooms at 2am to 7am study sessions at Roasting Plant, from hiking and dancing and Karaoke and kayaking, to all the restaurant outings and unbelievable amount of food-eatings—I’ve been through it all with these girls.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned thus far in my college experience is the value of having a group of friends. There have been many moments where I found it hard to be there for myself, and in those times this group was my safety net. These girls are my support system. And they’re Santa’s finest.

And I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you all so much for your incredible amounts of energy, intelligence, and ambition. Each one of you has contributed to making me who I am today, and each one of you has taught me how to be the best version of myself. Thank you for having hearts that are too big for your bodies and tempers calm enough to cope with my continuous complaints. Thank you for having wallets that can keep up with my food consumption goals, ears that can withstand all of my screechable singing shenanigans, and amounts of love that would make even Voldemort’s cheeks redden and eyes twinkle.

Thank you for having souls that burn brighter than the sun, that are constantly scarred and scratched and chipped away at until they begin to break apart, yet never entirely dissipate. Souls that have endured so much hurt and so much pain, that have been pierced through and through, yet continue to spread incredible amounts of warmth, kindness, and comfort to the other ones in need. To souls like me. I have never met a group of girls—a group of women—more dramatic, more profound, more quirky, , more attention-seeking, more giving, more caring, and more wonderful than the ones that make up the Village. My Village.

Love, with all my stomach and all my heart,

Vennela