Before we get started let’s flashback to senior year of high school, whenever that was.
You drive to school, because at this point you have nagged your parents enough so they finally got you a car. You park in the same spot you do every day next to your best friends' cars. Get out and go find the group "hangout" before school. This was always my locker; don’t know why but for four years in high school everyone met there, even if I didn’t show up to school because I was “sick.”
These friends were your friends when you went in and out of puberty. You look at those ugly photos now and say to yourself “how was anyone my friend when I was disgusting?” Update: these idiots were. Thank god for these idiots.
Senior year was one of my favorite years: I had a girlfriend, and I had a solid group of friends that we literally did everything together. A normal weekend in the winter was sitting in a friend's basement, but in the summer we were out having bonfires left and right.
Prom, prom. The only time I have ever seen all of my friends dressed up. Prom was fun when one of my best friends stole the show as he danced in the middle of the circle like the goofball he is. We still even joke about prom till this day.
Flash-forward to graduation.
A day that all of us have been looking forward to since we walked into the high school doors as freshmen. But now with all of our college minds made up, with only a few of us going to the same one, it was the writing on the wall that this will be one of our big events this summer. Graduation day went fast, just a blink of an eye and it was over. The summer was ours.
Remember that summer before college? Where everyone in your friend group worked their butts off to make as much as money as they could before going off to school? Hanging out took a back seat. The most important people in your life worked till 10 p.m. every night, clocked out as fast as they could, and then broke all traffic laws to get to the hangout that night.
The day before the first of my friends left for college we had a sleepover. We swam, played video games, and mostly talked about the past; this was one of the saddest nights of my life. I couldn’t bear to think about leaving these guys.
Fast forward to now. I am going back to my fourth semester at UT, six hours away from my high school friends. Yes we talk everyday in our groupchat. The groupchat that I have to explain to everyone that reads the messages. “If you think I am weird you need to read these,” I wouldn’t want it any other way. Yesterday one of my friends had to go back to school early to work at his job.
The goodbye was sickening now that I look back on it.
We are used to seeing each other for short times of the year and saying goodbye for six months and that ruins my day. The guys I used to spend every day with in high school, I now only see three months tops of the year (and that’s if everyone comes back from college).
Your high school friends are the ones who knew who you were going to be before anyone else did. Now as I leave to go back to my college town, I say goodbye to the friends that matter the most.
Just remember when you are sending out the “save the date” for your wedding, you don’t forget to invite your first friends, and not just the newest ones.
