Friendship, like any type of relationship, takes work. It means genuinely caring for the people in your life. Sure, we’ve all had the freshman year Best Friend Forever that you meet your first week here, all nervous about College Life, wondering how to get to the dining hall, nervously trading schedules and going to on-campus activities together. Those are connections based on a) mutual interest in making friends and b) proximity to each other (you probably live in the same residence hall). You learn what makes a true friend by trial and error. My one standby rule: friends shouldn’t hurt you or make you doubt yourself. If they do, they’re not worth the time.
In my 3+ years here, I’ve seen friendships blossom and wilt, shift and rearrange themselves…any sort of metaphor you can think of to describe the change. There are the immediate connections with another human that hold true. Exhibit A: my freshmen year roommates. We don’t live in the triple together anymore. It was great and I can appreciate those times for what they were: fun and silly and filled with pictures I made them take and football games we never went to. I adore their faces. One of them was even my roommate last year (A loving tornado of an experience but more on that another time). For the full story on our first meetings visit out blog!
That being said: making friends on campus can be light and easy and intriguing your first year here. Same goes for the next few years. You get to know people in your class, form study groups, organize cram sessions and end up inviting them to Happy Hour and your fate is sealed. School friends for life! ….but what about those friends you left behind in high school? I get it, you went to different schools. People change. Drift apart. Mutually separate and all that jazz. It doesn’t make it easy though.
I have a friend. Met her my senior year of high school. She was a freshman then. Now, she's at college across the state. It’s odd because she used to be my first stop after coming home on break. Now, our breaks don’t match up and she’s in a new universe of sorts. I keep up by subscribing to her twitter notifications and occasionally text her a variety of emojis that seem fitting for her. See: the sunflower emoji followed by the sunshine emoji followed by a bevy of heart emojis. I’m not saying we’re going to drift apart because we go to different schools but I also have to acknowledge that maintaining a friendship when I’m on the other side of it is a tricky, humbling experience. Every worry and question and doubt she’s had about going away to college is something I went through too. I have to take a step back and understand that these are all firsts for her and I can’t taint her experience with my own missteps or regrets.
If we can maintain a sturdy, true friendship while I’m 8+ hours away, her being at a different college will be a breeze. Right? Except her life isn’t based at home anymore and she’s in a new city, meeting new people and figuring out what makes her happy. She saw me go through the same thing her sophomore year of high school. She stayed by my side, offering up words of encouragement and well thought out advice on life. It’s a new phase of our friendship but I’m happy to be there for her just as she’s always been there for me.
Friendships can end. Friendships can leave behind collateral damage. Friendships can be the best thing in the world. Friendships can change you. Friendship is one of the things that makes life worthwhile. True friends stay. Sometimes you have to learn that who you though someone was isn’t always the case. Friendship can be tricky, they grow based on a person to person basis. They can get complex but friendship should not be a burden. I hope my friends know that I view them as contributing factors to who I am today. I also hope that my friend across the country knows that I’m cheering her on from here.
