When you’re new to college, you expect massive changes in your life, its part of the territory. However, the internal changes you unconsciously make, are completely unexpected. Last weekend, I had a falling out with two of my closest friends. I had known them for four years and I had predicted them to be a massive segment of my life and heart forever. And yet, one argument, albeit a huge one, was enough to get each of the three points of the trifecta to turn our heads on one another. We closed a chapter on a huge part of our lives, instead of writing the pages that would fill a novel as I had hoped.
My roommate says that some people are meant to make an appearance in your life, and others are meant to stay in it forever. I had never expected those girls to be the appearance type, and yet they were. It pains me to say it, but it makes me question all relationships. If it is so easy to write people off, people who you love and adore, did you ever really love them in the first place?
Granted, college is a time to figure out who you are, and some people mature and change faster than others, causing friction on relationships formed prior to college entry. And new relationships are garnered that also put stress on the previous ones. If you find other friends in college whom you get close with, it can sometimes be hard for your older friends to deal with, especially if they haven’t kept the pace with meeting new people.
The fragility of relationships, no matter how strong the love between the people, is a scary concept. It is petrifying to let yourself love someone, whether it is your best friend or your boyfriend, because any day they can leave your life just as easily and quickly as they entered it. When someone has your heart, they know how to hurt you, and they can do it whenever they please.
It is hard to accept. It’s hard to appreciate the fact that people are going to come into your life, light it up like a sparkler, and then fade out, as effortlessly as it was to light the sparkler in the first place.
My advice for incoming college students is to embrace the changes, not only in your day to day life, but the changes in your heart. Accept the fact that you’re going to grow up, and the people in your life may or may not be a part of that experience with you. I’m not saying to ditch your previous friends, and replace them with newer, better models. I’m merely saying that you should be open to the possibility that those people who you feel are central to your life now, may not be there tomorrow.
I’m saying that you shouldn’t feel like you need to hold yourself back to keep those people in your life. I’m saying that you should embrace the changes, embrace your new interests whatever they may be. And don’t let your friends dictate how you live your life. At the end of the day, they might not be there with you—they might not be the forever friends you thought. And yet, that is ok, because when good people leave your life, there is room for other amazing people to enter it.
Good friends, and I mean really genuine, good friends are so hard to come by. When you find them, treat them like the treasures they are. At the same time however, don’t bend over backwards for people unworthy of your time. Those friends aren’t going to stick around when the going gets rough anyways. At the end of the day, you have to let yourself grow up, and move on.