"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll also miss the person you are now at this time and place because you'll never be this way ever again." -Azar Nafisi
With graduation now over with, the realization has set in. For me, I have friends I've gone to school with for four years about to move back home, or move to a different state for jobs.
Graduation was an emotional time for all of us. It was the last time that we were all together, all in one place, the people we loved and had created a life with. And I know that this isn't goodbye forever, but it was goodbye to a life that we loved, that we had cherished and sometimes took for granted. And we all knew it. We all knew that this was it; our final moments together before everything began to change.
This letter is for my friends moving away, but it's also for me, a person who's having a hard time coming to terms with this big change.
First off, I wish you were all still here with me.
I wish my roommates and I still lived in our same room, which now feels so empty and quiet. I miss you all, so much. I'm going to miss seeing you in the hallways, eating dinners together, creating mischief in our city that we all love. And I'm not going to lie, it sucks. It sucks knowing nothing is going to be the same.
But I know that this isn't goodbye.
With everyone moving around and starting their new chapters in their life, I know I'll see you soon. It may be a few weeks, a few months, but this will never be goodbye. These past four years will keep us together, because despite the lows, we had some great highs that skyrocketed us into the clouds. And those are the memories that will keep us in the air, feeling light and giddy, our one piece that we can hold onto from this period in our life.
It's going to be different, and it's going to be hard.
For someone like me, I struggle to keep in contact with people I don't see everyday, and that's been something I've been working on the past year. It's been one of my greatest fears that I'll lose some friendships simply because I'm bad at staying in touch. But from what I've also learned, is that the friendships I do have are ones that can out stand long distance and time, and have nothing change. So, yes, it's going to be hard, trying to start a new chapter in our lives while trying to still hold on to the last one, but we must find balance. I have no doubt that we will figure this out.
We'll be OK.
Not being surrounded by "your" people is terrifying, and it's hard. It can wear you down, it can make you bitter, and it can make your life a living hell. But we'll be OK. We'll all be OK. We'll have to make an effort to see everyone, and that means planning trips or vacations. It means sacrificing time and money and energy when you could simply stay home for a weekend and binge on Netflix. But it's worth it. I know it's worth it, because friendships like these don't come along often, and we all know how lucky we got with our friend group. We all know things will change, but that one thing will always remain the same: we will always be there for each other, through the good and the bad, the time zone differences, the country barriers: we will always find a way back to each other.
