The summer before senior year means a lot of big decisions and a lot of change. I went to the same small school from 3rd grade to 12th grade, so I was not a big fan of change when I first came to college. However, I quickly learned that change is actually an amazing thing and helps you grow even when you might not want to. One of my biggest changes this summer was that I drifted apart from one of my closest friends.
He was one of my best friends in high school and even though I'd only known him for a couple years, it felt like I'd known him my whole life. When we went to college, we promised to stay best friends and I felt confident that we could keep that promise. I had drifted apart from most of my high school friends but 3000 miles apart and 3 years later we were still going strong. Slowly we stopped talking or even trying to talk to each other and when I saw him again it wasn't quite the same. There are those friends you can not talk to or see for a couple weeks or even a couple months but when you're reunited you pick up from where you left off. With these friends it's like nothing has changed. You both grew separately in your time apart and can't wait to share who you are now with each other. It was always like that with us until for some reason it wasn't.
Before we drifted apart, we were texting almost everyday. It slowed down to a couple texts a week or once in a while. I still didn't really think anything of it because I understood that we were both busy. About halfway through the summer I started to feel confused because I realized that we'd almost completely stopped talking and I had no idea what was going on in his life. Then I started to feel angry because the only reason we were talking was because I would initiate the conversation.
At this point I probably sound like a stereotypically crazy girl who's in love with my best friend or desperate for his attention, but it's really not like that at all. He wasn't phasing me out, ignoring me or trying to be rude. I wasn't texting him everyday, stalking his social media networks or being consumed by our radio silence. The anger subsided into indifference as I realized that I couldn't do anything else. I didn't feel defeated, angry or upset in any way. I just accepted it for how it was.
This acceptance was my growth. I used to blindly insist on things always being the way I wanted them to be and when they weren't, I would assume that it was someone else's fault. I didn't learn the "Change is Good" lesson just from this but it was an interesting reminder of that lesson with something that I thought was so certain in my life. The thing about growing apart from friends is that it usually doesn't end on good terms or bad terms. Really it doesn't ever end and you can revive the relationship whenever you're both ready, whether that's this summer, next summer or years later.
