When I was in middle school and through some of high school, I would have considered myself a social butterfly. I tried and mostly succeeded being friends with everyone, but still had a distinct group of friends that really knew me. By the middle of my junior year, I was down to four really close friends and I felt myself slowly distancing myself from the acquaintances I made years previous. By senior year, I exclusively talked to and hung out with three people. The rest of my peers ravished in their groups of friends, trying to soak up every moment they had left with them before we graduated and all headed off for college.
I realized then that a lot of the people I claimed I was "friends" with was solely based on the fact that I saw them five times a week. Two hands are not enough to count the amount of people I have not talked to since high school because we were high school friends. But that is the beauty of high school and going away to college. You discover who is actually your friend based on who contacts you when you won't be seeing them five days a week.
As college progressed, I went from three to two friends that I talked to on a weekly basis and went out of my way to see when I was home. You'd think because I went from being a social butterfly to a girl with only two close friends that I would be upset about it. But I'm not. I am so happy I have my two close friends because they have stuck around long enough for me to call them that. I am OK with not having a giant group of "best friends" that most likely gossip about each other behind their backs because if I have something to say, then I am comfortable to say it.
All of this being said does not mean that I don't have other friends. I do have friends, but not ones that I consider close ones. I still spend time with others and have wonderful memories to share with them. But it is completely OK to be 19-years-old and officially be able to say you have two very close friends in your life.
I am grateful for the friends that I do have. I am grateful for the friends I did have. And I am grateful for the friends I will have.
