In high school, you make friends with people you think will be your friends for life, but that’s not always the case. These friends you spend 4 years with in high school are people with whom you make amazing memories, and then in August when college rolls around, things change.

Everyone goes their separate ways and begin new lives. If you’re lucky, the communication will continue, but that takes effort, effort that many don’t like to contribute.Luckily, good things can come out of this.

Although it may seem as if a piece of you is gone, the memories will never fade. Here are some of the things I have learned along the way:

1. Losing a friend means finding yourself.

There may be parts of you that you have never seen before and due to unfortunate events, this could cause you to love yourself even more.

2. You may be given more opportunities that you didn’t know were possible because you never allowed yourself to explore new things.

3. You have the ability to create new friendships with people.

When you have been friends with people for a long time and then lose them, this could be a difficult process, opening up to new people. It doesn’t have to be, though! There is no rush to get to know people. The longer it takes, the more intimate of a relationship you can have with people.

4. You no longer have to deal with the baggage from high school drama.

It is as if you have a clean slate when you make new friends.

5. This could be a valuable time for you to grow as a person.

Negative relationships with others could cause you to not reach your full potential.

6. If the friends you lose are toxic, it is quite obvious that you will see a noticeable change in your attitude creating happiness.

There are no benefits to holding onto relationships that bring you down.