I consider myself very lucky to have found wonderful friends throughout all stages of my life. I had a childhood best friend to play pretend with, a middle school friend to spend too long at Bath and Body Works with and high school friends to drive around aimlessly with.Â
However, I also had that one friend in middle school who dated the boy I liked, and the emotionally unavailable friends in high school who took advantage of my time. Life is not perfect, and neither are friendships.Â
My parents always prophesied I would find my people in college, and they were right. Thankfully, since being at the University of Florida, I have found friendships that I am eternally indebted to. It is through my college friends that I learned you have to invest time and energy into the people you want to keep in your life.Â
I thoroughly believe every friendship serves a distinct purpose; while friends come and go, every person you encounter will leave a mark on your life. A tormenting high school friendship taught me more about myself than most other life experiences I’ve had. Though our relationship was short-lived, the lessons I learned greatly outweigh any negative impact they had.
I tend to pour everything into my friends, and sometimes I overdo it. In the past, I tried so hard to be a friend to all that I actually became a true friend to none, least of all myself.
On a junior year field trip, though, I met one person who really stuck: Giuliana. Despite living states away from each other, Giu and I instantly grew close. We called for hours, talking about everything under the sun. I was going through a lot at home, and found great solace in her.Â
I often felt saddened that we did not get to have the same everyday experiences as other best friends; distance prevented us from having late-night ice-cream runs or Target trips. There were no last-minute sleepovers, and I felt like our friendship was less than because we did not have those memories. But, those anxious thoughts of mine at 17 could not have been more wrong.Â
Two years later, we both ended up at our top schools: her at UPenn and I at UF. Now having more control over our schedules in college, we have made distinctive efforts to visit each other, and getting to show each other around our beloved college towns has brought us closer than ever. Because of these intentional moments together, we have found time to have late-night Taco Bell, go to concerts together and dance at a Broadway rave with my sorority sisters.Â
It is often a worn-out sentiment, but you truly get to choose a family among your friends. They are the support system you decide for yourself, and I. Because of this, it is thus so important to keep the good ones close and to be very intentional in those relationships.Â
A friendship that survives distance and separation has the potential to last a very long time. I always knew I was lucky in my friendships, but a quote I saw on TikTok recently made me appreciate the ones that take a little more effort. The quote said: “How lucky am I to have friends worth flying for,” and I really am.Â
The older I get, the more I realize that friendship isn’t about convenience, but rather the choices you make. And if that means buying a plane ticket, booking time off or staying up late on FaceTime, then that’s love in action, because friends like that are always worth flying for.