Tears are acceptable. However, at one point or another, we have to get it together and keep on living our lives at school. Sometimes when we go to college, we bring our best friend from high school with us or we meet them at school. Either way, sometimes your school soulmate was older than you to begin with or came in with more credits. It can be really hard to go from seeing them every day to not at all.
Assuming that you’re going to their graduation, do everything that you can to make the special day about them. Sure, you’ll be sad to see them go soon, but they’ve put in a ton of hard work to be able to walk across the stage. Get them a gift. It doesn’t have to be necessarily huge or expensive, but it’s nice to reward them for getting their degree and also staying up with you on long nights blabbing about what was on your mind that day. Take photos of them and don’t forget to take photos with them to remember the sometimes once-in-a-lifetime event.
After graduation, they’re pretty much free to do whatever they want for the rest of their lives. That's a crazy amount of freedom. However, even though their parents will likely be there, help them with the moving process. You’ll either be moving yourself or staying at school, but it’s always nice to have a helping hand with such a strenuous process. Coming from someone who has moved over 10 times in my life, I really understand how annoying it can be. Likely, they will return the favor if they can. They’re leaving their home and going on a new journey and as they’re packing away their college memorabilia, they’ll likely be reminiscing about how great it was, especially with you by their side.
Eventually, they’re going to go home or to wherever their next destination is and you’ll have to say your goodbyes. As mentioned earlier, crying is totally acceptable. Hanging on to them for dear life is also acceptable. We all deal with the moving of a friend in different ways.
After they’ve gone, you have to resume your normal life until you graduate. Sure, there maybe won’t be as many late-night snack runs or random Wednesday afternoon coffee dates, but we can’t do much to bring them back. You’ll probably have other friends to hang out with, but we usually all have that one best friend who takes the cake (you might have more, but I don’t know your life). Your BFF will always know that they hold the number one place in your heart, so there’s no need to worry about giving your attention to other friends. Being with other people will make you feel a lot better when you’re missing your bestie.
If you both have vehicles, then don’t forget to go visit! This will probably be the easiest on the weekends when there are no classes and (hopefully) no work. However, if their new job or home took them to a land far, far away, visits every so often will soften the blow too. Long-distance friends are great and it's likely that you and your best friend will talk almost every day. However, sometimes we just really like to be together and hug it out!
All in all, it will be hard. You just have to remember the good times and keep up the communication. We’d all love to say, “Yeah, my best friend and I went to the same college and they were the best years of my life.”
As I sit here and write this, my heart feels a little heavy because my best friend Hunter is graduating this spring. After she is gone, I have a full year left. We always pray that our jobs or home lives will land us in the same area, but we’ll just never know. Throughout our three years together in college, we’ve had the worst of luck, but we always had each other to make everything OK. This one’s for you, bae. I love you and I’ll miss you so much.
