As I write this, I am sitting on a plane coming home from two weeks in Costa Rica. Well, actually, I am flying to Cancún because there is a problem with the plane so we’re making an emergency landing. Apparently this actually happens. I’ll be home in Texas by tonight and I am coming home with some new friends. Having spent the last two weeks in Costa Rica with people who were strangers two weeks ago has me thinking about my own journey with friends and relearning how to make them. So, with that being said, this is an ode to friendship, to college, and to learning the ropes of finding “your people” in college.
I was fortunate enough to have an incredibly steady childhood. I only moved once and since 2007, my family has lived in the same house in Austin, Texas. I grew up surrounded by a consistent community of people who didn’t change all that much. Of course, some people came and went, but for the most part, the friends I had in 6th grade are the same friends I graduated high school with and the same friends I still love and cherish from a distance today.
That being said, coming to college was whiplash. I hadn’t made friends since elementary school. Of course I had made a few here and there, but not inner-circle, ride-or-die, maid-of-honor level friends. I made those young and never looked back. So how do you do it? How do you continue to make those friends when the final recess bell rang 10 years ago? I was the last person you’d ever want to ask. I felt lucky that some of my high school friends accompanied me to A&M, but in hindsight, clinging to them only made making friends harder. I had people in my hometown but I needed “my people” in College Station. I wanted to transfer after my freshman year to a place where I could really have a fresh start. That’s a story for another time, but ultimately, I decided to stay at A&M and put my best foot forward in the friendship sphere. After some trials and tribulations, I am one semester away from graduating and I can’t stop making friends with people I wish I had four more years with. I definitely haven’t figured out a secret formula to friendship or the secret to life, but I have learned how to open up. I’ve learned how much confidence affects my ability to make friends and I’ve learned how to nourish new friendships—friendships that are built on common ground rather than history.
My sophomore year was when I started to make some changes. I joined an organization that I didn’t really know anyone in and I went to everything. Any social, any party, any event, I was there. It was nerve wracking to show up on my own and talk to strangers. But now? Those strangers are my best friends. They’re the people I’m living with next year, the people blowing up my phone, and the people I consider to be “my people.” Now I am in leadership in this organization. This organization is everything to me. I will even be doing my Ring Dunk (a Texas A&M tradition) with one of my friends from this organization. These are people I hadn’t even met until my sophomore or even junior year! But, as everyone promised, it truly does work out and it does take time and it unfortunately takes some trial and error. This was not the first thing I joined, but it is the one that stuck. So, to the lonely freshman: I see you, I’ve been you, I want to hug you, and I promise that the friends that stick are coming.
You’re probably wondering how Costa Rica fits into all of this. In my last article, I wrote about my experience with studying abroad in Italy. This semester, I took a class that added another stamp to my passport. For a class about communication, sustainability, and diversity, I went on a field trip to Costa Rica. On the trip, I became close with a few of my classmates who I had barely spoken to before we departed. Throughout the two weeks, I never wondered if they liked me or if I was fitting in with them. I was just enjoying the new friendships. In the moment, I thought nothing of it, but in retrospect, this is insane growth for me. I have spent so much of college wondering if the people around me like me. This insecurity contributed so much to my struggle with making friends. It’s one of those things that I didn’t even realize was inhibiting me until it wasn’t. It’s so hard to nourish a new friendship if you’re spending all your energy questioning it. This isn’t the most insightful realization, but it is big for me. It’s so much easier to make friends when you’re confident that you belong in the friendship—after all, you make up a huge 50% of any relationship you’re in.
As I sit on this plane, during our unfortunate, yet precautionary decline into Cancún, I am sitting alongside people I didn’t know two weeks ago; people who know me as the version of myself I am today, with absolutely no history tying our paths together prior to this semester. And they like me! And they’ve said so! And I don’t question it! And I like them! Life is hard. Making friends in college is even harder, especially at such a big school. But this is a celebration of the fact that it eventually happens. And it will continue to happen. And I now love some of my college friends enough to be distraught by the thought of them graduating before me. So really, it does all work out.
A few days later…
Also, I did make it home later that night. All is well. Pura vida.