When I started my freshman year eight months ago, my dad wrote me a letter full of sage wisdom. One of the last things he said was to “burn the boats.” What did he mean? My dad was telling me to dive in — head first. As hard as it will be, he explained, you have to sever many of your ties to home in order to fully and intentionally transition into a new community. Boy, was he right.
I remember how hard it was to come home from college for the first time. I was so excited to see my old high school friends. It was pretty disappointing to discover how different those relationships had become. Something just didn’t feel the same. Slowly, those relationships have faded. At first, I didn’t want to let them go. Those were memories, laughter, and great people that were leaving my life! I soon realized, however, that not all friends are forever.
As students, we are at an age where friendships are literally everything. We get to do life with our closest friends. Shifting relationships are such a reality of college life. Besides the basics like homesickness and difficult classes, I would argue that this might be the hardest struggle every new college student faces — perhaps the hardest struggle that every 20-something faces. Amidst the discombobulation that comes with a whole new environment and navigating adult life is also the difficult struggle of transitioning relationships.
College has taught me that friends are transient. Friends are seasonal. Very rarely are friends forever. Friendships are formed on the basis of common interest. Most of my friends are college students who live in the Santa Barbara area. My deepest, most available, and best friendships right now are with freshmen at Westmont. Not because I’m stuck in a tiny bubble, but because these are the people with whom I have the most shared interest. They’re the ones who get it.
Friends are rad. They’re there to laugh with you, to cry with you, and to do life with you. They’re encouraging, humbling, comforting, and wholly necessary to a full life. What I’ve realized, though, is that letting go of friends is necessary to life. Friends are with you through the rough times and the good times. But eventually, paths drift apart. I wasted so much energy on trying to keep up old friendships, only to realize that I was stopping myself from creating awesome new ones.
This isn’t me telling you to have no friends who are different from you. Please don’t do that. And this doesn’t mean that every friendship you currently have is destined to failure. There are those friends who are above the seasons — who will be there for life. But these are few and far between. For the most part, friends are there for one season and gone the next. Here’s the reality: you will lose friends along the way. Let yourself. It is only when you let go and move on that you can create new ones. The sometimes painful process of moving on launches you into a new stage of life perfectly poised to meet new friends. The great thing is — they’re exactly in the same boat. Walk up, say hello, and meet the people who will be by your side as the next chapter of life unfolds.
