High school can be referred to as the “best four years of your life.” For most, including myself, that was not the case. Between pointless drama within different cliques and underclassmen thinking they’re superior over you, high school wasn’t the best. High school was fun and all, but I couldn’t wait to get out of there. My senior English teacher always said something along the lines of “the world offers so much more than just high school.”
Students would typically define the “greatest time of your life” as the years spent on the campus of your choice. I could very well see why; college introduces you into a broad new spectrum of life and throws thousands of new faces at you. When I went home for winter break, it was almost unbelievable how just one semester of college not only changes you, but changes everyone you grew up and went to high school with who also picked to endure a higher education.
(Author and friends from high school//photo courtesy of the author)
We said our goodbyes back in August then we all went our separate ways. My good friends and I were all attending different colleges across the state of Ohio. Seeing them for the first time again came with a bit of a shock. It was like seeing your best friend of multiple years having a whole other life. I always say that I have my life here in Athens and then my life back at home. You cringe a little at first when your best friend refers to someone else as their “best friend” and then quickly adds “at school” to the end of it.
Winter break was the first time it hit me that all of my friends are growing and flourishing into better, more intelligent people at school with an array of new hobbies. When I told my boyfriend and best friend that I started doing yoga, they busted out laughing. I went to a very small everyone-knows-everyone kind of high school and I picked up that one single semester of college had the ability to change people right in front of your eyes.
I know someone who completely failed out because they never went to class, someone who never cared about grades in high school but is now on the Dean’s List, and I even know a friend who had their heart set on a major and their ideal job picked out just to switch and study something completely different. College can make you realize you should be doing something else with your life (like the military) or it can confirm that you are doing exactly what you need to be doing, exactly where you need to be doing it.
I even know a girl who had her “dream school” picked out since freshmen year, just to arrive on campus and halfway through the semester realize that the picture she had of the school in her head wasn’t a reality. It crushed her heart.
Once you’re out of high school and in college you truly realize that the things you thought were a big deal this time last year, actually mean nothing at all. I also realized that the people I had to “hate” in high school because of who I was friends with was absolutely ridiculous. I am now friends with someone whom I never thought twice about or talked to in high school and boy, do I regret it. It’s kind of crazy how college opens you up to new friendships, even with people you’ve passed in the halls for years.
I am thankful for all of the friends I’ve had throughout my life and for my best friend back home, but I also love the friends that college has given me. No matter how much we may change over the next four years, I hope they know that I’ll always be rooting them on and wish them nothing but success at their own individual schools.
“A quote by Elizabeth Foley once read “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.”