Whether you just graduated high school, or you've been out a while now (like me), you've probably started to notice that you haven't seen or talked to some of your class since graduation. These are the people that you spent the last four years of your life with. Two years pass, and now you're trying to figure out whether or not you should make awkward small talk after a random run-in at the grocery store. Why is it that it's almost as if you've never even met? There is no specific reason that this happens, other than the fact that the chapter of your life that they were a part of has closed.
When I look back at my graduating class in high school, I put them into three different groups:
1) There are the ones that I knew of, but never really talked to.
2) There were those that I always had classes with and would talk to on the daily, but never really chilled with outside of school-related events.
3) And finally, there were the people that I hung out with outside of school.
Aside from our high school reunion, I automatically assumed that once I graduated, I would never see the majority of the first group again. This was a pretty spot on assumption. As far as the second group, I figured I might see them at the occasional party whenever I would go back home, but I wasn't holding my breath. Concerning the third group, I thought that things would pretty much stay the same and that I'd talk to them on a regular basis. Unfortunately, it didn't exactly turn out that way.
I can honestly say that I talk to a total of four out of the one hundred and seventy people that I graduated with. Of those four, I talk to two on a weekly basis. I never intentionally stopped talking to them, but as my life changed, so did theirs. The sad truth is that the people who you spent so many years with are moving on to different things, with or without you. Some people go away for college, while some stay close to home. Others go straight into the workforce as soon as they receive their diploma. Either way, it gets harder to stay in-touch. People make new friends through school or work. As you establish your post-high school life more and more, you begin to drift apart. You can continue to keep up with their lives through social media, but that's when you realize just how different everyone really is. It's not necessarily a bad thing that this is happening. It's all a part of life. You make new friends and meet new people. The experiences you went through in high school, along with the people you experienced it with, help shape you.
Life pulls you in different directions without realizing it, and the people you saw most become a mixture of random phone calls and drunk texts. Some of the best memories I've ever made were with my high school friends. Though I might not see them all the time, I could easily pick up right where I left off. It’s okay if you don’t talk to your high school friends on a daily basis. You know that you can always go to them when you need them, and they can do the same. When I think about my class, I'm thankful that I was able to go through my high school with them, and I'm looking forward to that five or ten-year reunion.
