Let’s be honest, college is a huge change that is intimidating at first. Sure we all want to leave high school and have a fresh start, but the idea of leaving your best friends behind is harder than you think. You remember all the good times you have had together. The tears and laughter, the good and bad decisions, and the little things like sitting in front of your locker each morning just talking. College may seem like it’s exciting, but it starts as a lonely new beginning.

My first few weeks at school were ones filled with longing for my family, boyfriend, and best friends. It was simply not the same. No one to share your new schedule with, share your gossip, or talk about the good old days. Nothing. Then, not surprisingly, two nobodies became my two best friends. These friends are different. They lack the qualities that I have become so accustomed to associating with friendship, but instead new ones came to the surface. The awkward silences become filled with laughter and the uncomfortable conversations cease to exist. Though I was frantically searching for the friends I had lost back home, I failed to realize that there were two best friends right in front of me.

These two best friends of mine were two parts of my life that I never knew was missing. Rather than the loud jams that were filled with country music back home, this first friend was surrounded with alternative; country being the archenemy. Jam sessions still occur just with a new vibe involved. She also became my refuge for boyfriend withdrawal. Though I never thought I would need it, this girl came in at the perfect time. Both missing our significant others severely, we found that this similarity actually brought us closer together. She has become the quiet to balance out my loudness, the calm to my crazy, and an ear for constant listening. I am thankful to say that she is unlike any of my other friends becoming my first friend I never knew was missing.

This second friend of mine is much different than the first yet we all seem to form a trio that goes together like peanut butter and jelly. She lacks the sense of city and suburbia that my other friends have but has a country background all her own. Always by my side for the good ideas and the not so good ones, she is constantly along for the ride. I am thankful to say that whether we are watching a Hannah Montana movie while eating an entire pizza or trying to dance, emphasis on trying, at a party, she has my back no matter what. She has become my country music buddy, my home away from home. Though coming from completely different backgrounds, this second best friend of mine manages to understand me in ways that only a good girl friend can.

As I said before, college is a change. At the start, I did not realize that it is actually the filler for all of things that had been missing. Yes, leaving best friends behind and all the time we spent together may be sad but it also opens the doors for a greater hold on what the idea of friendship is. Friendship is not contained by the qualities that your hometown friends have, it is the people that show up in to your life just when you need them the most.