Right before our first year of university began, my high school friend group gathered on a windy summer afternoon at an Uptown Toronto Park to bury a time-capsule. We filled the plastic Dollarama box with photos, letters and little mementos we had gathered over the years. We read our letters out loud while we laughed and cried. Our hearts were made whole by the memories made together, but also with the assurance that there would be plenty more despite the many changes ahead. We duct-taped our box, dug a hole next to a tree we would sit under sometimes, and recorded ourselves burying the box to remember where to dig it back up after graduating. As excited as I was to move to Kingston and start at Queen’s, I couldn’t help but worry things would never be the same.
Now, two full school years and two summers into university, I’m witness to our ascent into young adulthood and its role in our shifting relationships with one another. I don’t think my friends and I are necessarily fighting the rapid change that many find takes place in the relationships of your late teens and twenties. Even if I haven’t spoken to one of them in months, sometimes I find myself realizing mid-conversation how weird it is that things feel so normal, even after one of us has experienced what we feel is a life-altering event.
I remember writing in my letter that my friends raised me into the person I am. I like to say that we moulded each other. Now as we experience real life, we get to see each other succeed, plateau, feel stagnant and thrive. Over the last two years, I’ve seen them meet new people, get jobs, kill it in school, experience trauma, experience heartbreak, move around, discover new passions, and grow into their own. Obviously, our relationships to each other were never meant to stay frozen in time while life raced on.
If the key to a successful relationship is compatibility, what happens when people who were so similar start to experience changes in the circumstances of their lives? The answer varies but generally, you have to adjust your expectations for one another. You obviously aren’t spending every second with one another anymore. So, as you go through the motions, you figure out how to treat one another amidst the shift. Often, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the changes I’ve noticed in them. A lot of the time, it only makes them better friends.
Sometimes the people you think will be your friends for life are only meant to last a few seasons. The relationships that are supposed to last, do. But regardless of whether a friendship has an expiry date or not, there is so much to learn about yourself, the world and others through friendship. All of that should be welcomed, not feared. So many of the pieces of my identity can be traced back to something I picked up from a loved one. There is so much value in finding a sense of community. Whether it’s on a small or large scale, humans are meant to feel a part of something. The best way to get the most out of your friendships is to embrace their progressions, changes and all.