College. Adulthood. Things I could never fathom for myself, despite knowing they were both near guarantees. A certain inhabitant of the living room bookshelf comes to mind. Old Age Is Always Fifteen Years Older Than I Am. The humorous title of a book I have never read. And in this moment, I completely understand. The whole idea that you never think time will catch up to you the way it does. For example, I always hear of family friends who graduate high school and go to college, but I really never thought that it would be me until all of the sudden, now it is. So as I pack for college, the place for other people and certainly not for little me, I ponder exactly how I got here, to this defining point in my life. I really can’t believe I have made it. I suppose that is how all major stepping stones of life must feel. It truly is an odd sensation. Suddenly, I am leaving the only life I have ever known. It is cliché and a lyric of sorts, and it perfectly sums up what I am going through.
If there is one thing I have learned so far, it’s that the people you meet make you who you are. And as all of my childhood friends scatter across the country, I cannot help but wonder how everyone will change and how I will change without their everyday company.
Likewise, my younger friends who have just returned to high school talk about how everything is so different without the old, now graduated, seniors. And though that may be accurate now, the painful truth is that life goes on. It’s as simple as that. Those friends will find other friends to fill the places where we once stood and eventually they will be the ones leaving, and so the cycle will repeat. I thought this as I said goodbye to them. They wished me luck in college and I wished them luck in high school, and we parted ways, almost as if we had never crossed paths in the first place.
I have always found goodbyes strange. They do not feel real somehow. I think it is because I tend to fight against the finality of it all. Obviously, I don’t want anything to be final. I assure myself that communication is the easiest it has ever been and my old friends are at my fingertips, just one text or one call away. But still, nothing will ever be the same, and I don't mean that in a dramatic soap opera way, I mean it in reality. Because nothing will ever be the way it is now. In actuality, we probably won’t have the same relationship ever again. And on top of the natural drifting apart, I am not the best at staying in touch.
However, regardless of where we end up geographically, my friends have impacted me as a person. And even if I never see some of them again, each and every one of these wonderful people I’m lucky enough to call my friends have truly touched my soul, and for that I am eternally grateful.
