Going home for Thanksgiving felt like I was on vacation: it was relaxing, I was back in my hometown, and I was surrounded by family. Despite all the other festivities, there was still one thing that I was kind of anxious for when I went home for the break: meeting up with my high school friends. Before we went to college, we were legit #SquadGoals. We did lots of things together: movies, sleepovers, going into Chicago, getting bubble tea, even prom. We grew up together( I mean I’ve been friends with these same people since I was in second grade) and all through high school (even though we didn’t get to see each other all the time) they were still my main squad.
But when college came around, things changed. All my friends from my squad went to University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne (UIUC) — a hop, skip and a jump from our home town. I was the only one to go away away. As in, away to a different part of the country. More than that, UIUC is pretty known for parties and I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. What if they partied? Were they part of greek life? Especially since they all lived in the same hall, they were constantly ( or at least I presumed) in each other’s lives. I was the one who decided that I wanted to leave all my friends and family and move to Boston for school. I guess my biggest fear was that since I was the only one who went to a different part of the country for school, I would be excluded. The fact that I hadn’t seen them in a while also built onto the weirdness I felt about seeing them for Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, I still went to hang out with them, and it felt like we automatically picked up where we left off. In fact, we didn’t really talk much about school, which was surprising because I thought my friends would have tons of crazy fun stories, while I had been studying. In fact, things were just normal. I guess that it was going to be only as bad as I thought it was going to be.
In the end, they’re still my friends. It doesn’t matter how far apart we are, we’ll still find a way to meet up once in a while and the fact that we’re able to pick up like we left off is a good sign that we’re really really good friends. I wouldn’t want it any other way.