Going to college was something I dreamed about growing up. I have two older sisters who I’ve seen journey through high school, college and now even graduate school. When I was growing up, I used to pretend this section of our living room was my “dorm room” and dictionaries and cookbooks were my textbooks. It was a weird game, but it was something I remember doing for so long. So now, here I am. I’ve finished a whole year of the dream I had been waiting for. But, that dream came with a cost. I had to leave some people who I had known since kindergarten and some I had met only a year before. Regardless of when I met these wonderful people, it’s becoming even harder knowing they’re going to fade away into my Facebook friends list. They’re going to become people who I say happy birthday to once a year. They’ll become people who I may see at a reunion one day. But for now, I hope to maintain some sort of contact with my “old pals I used to run around with” before they fade off into oblivion.

I saw this coming. From a very young age, I noticed what my sisters did in terms of their education. My oldest sister went off to college when I was five. To be honest, I did not really understand what was happening at the time; I just knew she wasn’t around as much. By the time she made it to and through medical school, I noticed there were two, maybe three people that she kept up with from high school. Some of those people were even at her medical school graduation. That’s the coolest thing to me, being overly sentimental, that people you haven’t been able to be with as much for years are still there for you during the best times of your life. A similar thing happened to my other sister. But, this time, I was four years older. I knew what it meant for her to leave after she graduated high school. I noticed even more how her friendships fell victim to the very thing I fear. Note, it’s not like they aren’t friends anymore. It’s just growing up. It’s how it works. Friends popped up every now and then. Some came to her pharmacy school graduation (my sisters are super smart, btw) as well as her wedding.

It’s a sad fate. Especially for people like us. We grew up in a small eastern Tennessee town on the border of Kentucky. Though there are plenty of people I don’t know, the people I did know were in my tiny school. To put it into perspective, my graduating class size was eleven (I made top 10!) So, one could assume the whole school, which was about 120 in size, was pretty close with one another. Some of us had grown up together, but a lot of my friends joined throughout my high school years. Then, there are the people who didn’t finish out school with me. There are people who switched schools, moved or were only in for a short while. I find joy in thinking about all of the people I know. Not just because of the number, but the impact. The impact I hope that I was able to make on them, and the impact they made on me.

Dear friends, I miss you. It may not seem like it because these posts you see and the stories I tell when I come to visit involve new people and experiences that I can’t share with you. But I do. I really do miss all of you, each and every one of you. You all come up in my mind every day. During my last days at the Academy, I only cried once. I cried on the last day of school. I cried because I knew that that was the moment my friendships would begin sharing the same fate as my sisters. I cried because I’d have to start convincing new teachers that my name wasn’t actually a joke. I cried because I wasn’t ready for it to end, but I knew it had to. It was time for me to grow up and depend on my friends/followers lists to maintain a connection. I hope that you won’t forget me. Please don’t forget the times we had in that small school that we found a way to call home. I love you all, and I wish the very best to each and every one of your endeavors and dreams.