Growing up, not apart
Over the last three years, I have managed many changing relationships with friends, with family and with peers. Throughout high school, especially after moving away to college, the ever-changing relationships have become my new normal, as they have for many people. My sisters went away to college this year and just like all relationships, this one has shifted and changed, but I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around it and change along with it.
Without hesitation, when I am asked who my best friend is, I say my sisters. The two of them have been my rocks for as long as I can remember, the only two people who have been there when no one else was and the people I feel truly comfortable being myself around. My heart felt like it was shattered into pieces when I went to college and realized that we would never truly live together again except for a few days on Thanksgiving and winter break where I would live out of a duffel bag in my childhood room.
Of course, now that we are all away at school, we have found our own respective niches. We all have different friends, different interests and different schedules. The girls whose beds I would lie in after a bad day are now miles apart and a scheduled FaceTime call away. I often find myself feeling sad or confused when our schedules don’t align and we don’t get to talk on any given day. Getting used to this change has been nothing but difficult. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish we were together again, taking our dog for a walk, gossiping or simply running errands together.
These feelings are deep and weigh heavily on my heart, but I know those feelings are a representation of the strength of our relationship, no matter the distance or the time. Relationships take effort even if the mode of communication changes drastically. We still make the effort to talk to each other virtually every day if not more than that. The relationship I have with my sisters is changing, but that doesn’t mean that there is a lack of caring or that we don’t all miss each other deeply.
It is difficult to manage changing relationships on top of school work, a social life and everything in between. As we change and as distance changes, relationships change and that is okay and good. Everyone, including ourselves, is changing and it is okay for our relationships to ebb and flow. We should know that it doesn’t necessarily mean the relationship itself means any less.
Everyone who knows me, knows about my sisters and that is something truly special that can never be replaced even as everything else around us changes.