Everyone says the friends you have in high school won't be the friends you have in college. Instead, the friends you have in college will be the friends you have for the rest of your life.
I found this to not be the case all the time, but at the same time also very true. Since I had graduated, I had lost a few friends since high school, some good and some bad. Everyone was headed off onto their own path and so was I. But I still kept in contact with the few that chose to stick around. I was never good at friendships admittedly (it wasn’t my strongest point throughout high school and middle school). I bounced from friend group to friend group over the years and never settled down.
But entering college, I had a pretty solid friend group. Everyone starts off that way, still friends with the friend group they had collected over their senior year and summer. We all think we know ourselves by then, that the people we are going to be in college is who we are after we graduate high school. Dead wrong.
Morals and lives change over the year. In high school everyone was changing, just at a much slower rate. In college and after high school the process seems to speed up much faster. We go off and meet new people, make new friends, learn things we didn’t learn when we were sheltered by our parents rules. Turning 18 instantly made us into adults faster than we expected. Some people liked the person they became, others not so much.
We started experimenting more, damaging the cerebral cortex a couple times that was considered, “not fully developed.” We would take a look in the mirror and want to change ourselves, whether that meant a drastic haircut or losing weight. Some (including me) got into new relationships, some started families while some just moved out of state and enjoyed being a college student on their own.
Some worked all day or not at all. We all were changing and growing and it just wasn’t good enough.
I’ll never forget when winter break came around and people came home from college. As if I hadn’t seen enough change on my Snapchat and Instagram, it was more real in person. Even the people I considered my friends before weren’t the same. It seemed like going away had made us different and the things we used to do in high school weren’t the same any more. It was now about parties and Greek life. Some came back home from college and stayed for the pressure being away was too much. Some went back and continued on with their college experience. Some had gained the freshman fifteen while others were making body transformations. We would make friends with people who just used to be someone we know and we would lose the friends we thought were so close to us.
There’s never an exact moment when you realize you and your best friends from high school won’t be your friend forever.
It just slowly happens.
One minute your spending every second you can get with each other, and the next priorities have changed. We meet new people along our year at college making time for our other friends harder to balance. But then you can’t go without saying something, a flick in the switch changes and you fight. Arguing all the time about the stupidest things. Blaming one another they have changed or their morals are different. Sure, those can be true but doesn’t make you an awful person for letting it happen.
Before you know it the person you once knew so close is no longer by your side. You pass each other and say hello but that’s about the extent of it. Friendships come and go, like they have with me always, but its unfortunate when the time comes to let go of those close to you.
We ALL change coming into college, not just one person. We all experience different things and mature or grow at a different rate. It’s nothing to blame someone for, it happens as we become to learn who we really are. I thank the friends I had in high school and wish them well as they endure on their college experience. I will miss the memories we had and the good times we made, but I won’t let myself down for I know there are so many more people to meet with years to come. As I rounded up my freshman year, i’m thankful for all the experiences I’ve made and the people I met. Some people will stick around for a while and others might just be around to get a class by. Life happens and we all change, but as long as you are happy with the person you’ve come to be, that’s all that matters.
Stay true, Class of 2015.
