College is a petri dish for friendships; you are constantly meeting new people, some older than you and some younger. This creates the problem of staying in contact after either you or your friends graduate. It can be tricky being on different schedules and in different states or countries. Nonetheless, it is important to continue fostering these friendships.
The older we get, the more people we will meet. I believe that every person we meet serves a purpose. Some may be for good and for friendship, while others may be negative. It’s the good people that we want to hold on to because good people are hard to find. Once graduation rolls around or you move because of your job, you won’t be able to see these friends as often as you’re used to. That doesn’t mean you can’t stay in touch. There are so many ways to stay in touch in this digital age. A good friendship will stand the test of time and distance.
For example, a close friend of mine lives in Wisconsin. That’s over 1,000 miles away! But he is never more than a phone call away when I need him, or he needs me. If your friends aren’t willing to put in the time to check in on you or update you on their lives, then maybe they’re not good friends. And that’s okay—what’s more important is fostering true friendships. A lot of friendships created during college either are or will become superficial. By this, I mean that it’s not sustainable to have hundreds of friends; therefore, many of those friendships will naturally fade away when you don’t have the luxury of seeing them consistently.
Distance can be beneficial in that it provides insight into who are the people who actually want to be in your life. This may be a trying time when it seems as though you’re losing lots of friends. In reality, you are only solidifying your best friendships. Staying in touch with the right people is important and letting go of the wrong ones is cleansing.
I encourage you to periodically evaluate your friendships and make sure that those in your life want to be in your life. Staying in touch when these true friendships become long distance is so important because chances are it will be a while until you see them again, but highly unlikely that you won’t see them in the future.
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