I'll never forget the day I said my final goodbye to my high school friends before departing for college; the few of us who had not already began their college journey were standing in my front lawn, well aware of the fact the next time we met we may not be the same people we were in that moment. I had heard the same thing from all the adults in my life: you are not going to remain friends with your friends from home. The only thing scarier than the prospect of losing my high school friends was the idea that I would actually be okay with it.

Fast forward to eight months later.

I have a group of friends from home whom I speak to every day, whom I have visited in college and some of who have made the snowy journey through upstate New York to see me.

But I also have many groups of friends from home with whom I do not speak every day, whom I have not visited in college, and who have not visited me in my Orange habitat. And the thing I was most scared of eight months ago came true: I'm okay with it. But just because I'm okay with it doesn't mean I don't care for those home friends or the countless memories we created during our chaotic adolescent years. It means I've accepted that we have grown apart, that we have changed (as many people do as they face the many hurdles of college), and that we have new people in our lives.

I still cherish all the late nights we spent together driving to nowhere, the day trips to the beach, the many dinners we consumed at our local diner, and the fact these people were there for me during some of my darkest times. I also know that they're just a simple "wanna get coffee" text away when everyone is home, even if it's not the same as the many coffees we splurged on at Starbucks after high school or the coffees we were forced to buy at the nearby coffee shop just so we had a place to sit at 10 pm when all the stores in our own town were closed.

The fact I am not as close to these people as I was before does not mean I cherish my moments with them any less. I am still grateful that they were the ones I made my teenage mistakes with and that they were the ones I got to grew up with.

If you're reading this and you're one of those high school friends I happened to drift away from, I hope you know that I love you just as much as I did eight months ago, even if I have a different way of showing it now. After all, they say that college friends are college, but home friends are just that: home.