Change is hard — or so everyone has always told me. I’ve never understood why change was supposedly so hard, and I’ve never had the problem of always fighting change, trying to constantly keep everything the same. Actually, I find change too easy, and I never thought of that as a flaw until just recently.
I was 6 years old the first time I moved to a different state. I hadn’t even finished first grade before I was forced to pick up the only life I had ever known and adapt to a completely new one. The first time I heard the words “we’re moving” come out of my parents’ mouths, I didn’t even understand what that entailed. I even thought that we would have to learn a new language in this strange state that was so far away from home.
However, when I heard these words again three years later and then another time three years after that, it started to just feel normal – like saying goodbye to all of my friends and building a new life from scratch every few years was just an ordinary part of growing up.
Although moving around frequently while growing up has made me who I am – adaptive and outgoing – it has also made me cut people off a little too easily. I don’t mean to be this way, but when life doesn’t make it convenient for someone to be in my life, I find myself continuing my everyday life without him or her.
This may have been a logical strategy when I was hopping from state to state in elementary and middle school, but it is only going to hurt me and leave me without anyone who cares about me if I don’t attempt to fix this flaw before I graduate college.
So, if you find change exciting, not scary, if you like constantly making new friends instead of just keeping the same ones and if you find it a little too easy to cut people off too, this one’s for you.
Your friends become your family in college. They learn more about you in a few months than some of your friends you’ve known your whole life might have ever learned. How could they not? You live together, go to class together, study together, go out together, have mental breakdowns together and even grocery shop together.
Even though I’ve had friends that I considered “best friends” in every state I’ve lived in, I have only maintained this status with a few of them. I cannot, however, fail to keep my college best friends around.
It may be easy right now to believe that your college best friends will be your best friends forever. I believe it about mine. Hell, we all even have a running joke that we get separation anxiety after not being together for a whole day – that surely means that they’ll be around forever, no matter what, right?
I wish this were true, but even in my first three semesters of college, I have found that it just isn’t that simple.
Friendship isn’t always easy, and it oftentimes isn’t convenient at all. Especially after graduation, maintaining friendships is going to be the opposite of easy and convenient. After spending almost every waking moment of four years of college together, all of your friends will go their separate ways, get jobs in different states, start lives of their own and make new friends along the way.
This doesn’t mean you should just throw in the towel and slowly but surely accept that your friendships are over. Friendships are about sacrifice. Friendships are about being thoughtful. Friendships are about loyalty.
If you have ever considered someone a best friend, there is an unspoken loyalty that remains there for life even if your relationship has changed from what it once was. Reach out to your old best friends that you cut off (whether intentionally or unintentionally), and simply ask them how they have been. Text someone you used to be close with but haven’t hung out with recently, and ask them to catch up over coffee. Most importantly, tell your current best friends how much you appreciate them and the time you spend together because it won’t always be as simple as it is today.
Change is fun and exciting, but everyone needs a little consistency in their life to remain sane. If you’re a girl who also finds herself cutting people off a little too easily, make the change today to ensure your friendships are that one consistent thing in your life. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make that change, too.