College is a strange time in our lives. Weeks before, when we were just in high school, we had to raise our hands just go to the bathroom, and then they just expect us to be adults. We're still babies. We're still used to having our parents make all of our big decisions for us. As we embark in our noon venture, we leave our comfortable nest at home. We leave our friends and family behind. The only normal we knew is now gone.
Of course, our friends and family are only a phone call or text away but, somehow, things change. Of course, there are some friends that will stay in our lives forever, but suddenly people we thought meant so much slowly go from being friends to just faces in the yearbook years down the road. The transition to college has a funny way of showing us who really means the most to us.
College is a great time in our lives where we become adults; we become the people we will be. You go in as a little baby, not knowing what to do, and you emerge as a person who suddenly can make decisions herself without really having to think about it. College is a time when we learn how to succeed; it's also where we learn how to fail.
During this magnificently strange time in our life, we find a new family. The people that we find in college, we figure out, are the people that we need in our lives. They help us grow up. You are thrust into the hardest years of your life, and all during that time, you get to live with these friends that slowly start to become family. You see that suddenly you go to them for advice. You eat your meals with them. You walk to class with them, study with them, and you want to hang out with them when classes are done.
These are the people you become adults with. We all started in the same boat on that freshman move-in day: scared, fresh out of high school, and not knowing how to embark on this crazy thing called adulthood. And in some weird way, these people become your co-workers, therapists, sisters, brothers, neighbors, roommates, annoying cousins and, most importantly, your very best friends. These are the people you do life with. And for how much longer do you really get to live with all your best friends? Technically we could all just give up on this adult thing and live together forever. But where's the fun in that?
Part of the joy of these friends is knowing there is a season for them. Yes, we will be lifelong friends as college binds us together like no other, but there is still a season for these friends. Before long the season will end, so enjoy the time you have with them because as you grow up, these are the people you'll look back on and say, "Those are my people. Those are the people that made me the person I am today." And I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want it any other way. And of course when our time together comes to an end, there will be many tears and many laughs as we think back on old memories. But I think Winnie-the-Pooh might have said it the best when he said, "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
