I may be one of the lucky ones, but even as a junior in college, I still talk to my friends from high school. For most people, when they come to college, they typically lose touch with their high school friends or don’t stay as close. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as most people also grow and change into different people when they go to college, and this may mean that their viewpoints aren’t the same as everyone that they were friends with in high school. In my situation, my high school friends and I have done a lot of growing up, but I’m happy to say that we’ve managed to grow up together and still remain close friends. For all of the incoming college freshmen, I hope that this serves as some hope that just because you’re going to college – and possibly moving away from all of your friends, – that doesn’t mean that you’re going to lose touch or that you’re going to stop being friends with the people you grew up with.
When it came time for all of my friends and I to commit to colleges, I was really nervous. Before then, I hadn’t really thought about how my friends and I were suddenly going to be all over the country or, for my first semester of college when I was in Italy, in different countries. I was scared that when my friends committed to schools in Utah, Florida, California, Pennsylvania and Maryland while I went to school in Delaware, it meant that we were never going to speak again. While I did lose a few friends, I managed to keep and make a lot more.
I have friends from my hometown now that I barely even knew in high school. And the friends that I did have in high school have become an even more important part of my life, even when we’re not in the same time zone. We manage to talk pretty much every week, and we plan Facetimes and game nights – our favorite one to play is Pizzuno. We also make a lot of plans for when we’re all home over summer and winter breaks. We’ve even been fortunate enough to see each other during the regular semester by visiting each others’ schools.
I think that the biggest lesson I’ve learned about friendship is that it’s really easy to maintain a friendship as long as you put in the effort and the dedication. One really important thing about long-distance friendships to understand is that you live two different lives with two different schedules and sets of priorities. But if you treat the relationship like it really is important to you, then it’s in my opinion harder to stop being friends than to keep being friends.
To all of my hometown friends, I love you and I’m grateful for you.