When going off to college, it is easy to feel like you are leaving so many things behind. From family, to friends, to familiar locations around your hometown, if you are going to live away at college, you will most certainly feel like you are losing a small part of yourself by moving to college. What also doesn't help is when your friends attend different colleges than you; you start to feel like they are starting their new adventure without you, already starting to make new friends and maybe forgetting about their friendship with you. Believe me, I have felt this. I still feel this.
It is possible, however, to maintain your friendship with your hometown friends while going to college. For me, what I needed to realize first was that I will stay in contact with the friends that I want to stay in contact with. I also needed to realize that my friends have the right to do the same.
Also know that staying in touch requires a great deal of effort. It is not easy to make new friends in a new place while also trying to hold on to what is familiar. It is said that distance is the true test of any relationship, and there was never a truer statement than this about college. I call college the "friendship sifter." Being away at separate colleges can make some friends fight for their friendship and really strive to make sure that their friendship is maintained, while others let the friendship gradually wither away. This is how college "sifts" our friends: the ones who stay in touch and put effort into the friends stay in the vessel of your life while other falls through the tiny holes and exit your life. What you are left with are true friends.
I think it is also important to note that even the friends that do stay in your life while in college will change. They will be shaped by their new surroundings, and will become a product of the new friends they made at school and the environment in which they now live. That product that they become may be good or not so good. It is up to you to decide if the friendship is worth accepting the changes while remaining friends or deciding to focus on new friends. Believe me, I have experienced this very thing: my best friend suddenly starting speaking differently, using terms I never heard of before, and began acting differently. While some of these changes were not necessarily stellar changes, there are still moments when she is the same girl I had known since, well, forever. So, yes, I am still her best friend, and she is still my best friend.
Although we are still best friends, I recognize that just because I still have a best friend in her doesn't mean that I cannot have a new best friend or two (or three) in college, separate from her. That is the key. It is more than okay to branch off of the familiar and make new friends apart from your childhood friends. It is very normal to make new friends in new settings; what is almost unheard of is maintaining the same friendship since childhood. You know you have found a special friend when you are friends for that long!
So what is my point? I know, I may have rambled a bit! My point is that while you may feel sad about "leaving behind" your old friends and moving on, know that you will remain friends with the ones you wish to remain friends with, and that you are not "leaving them behind." You are merely adding to your wealth of friends. Keep the old friends you wish to keep, but usher in the new friends as well.
That's all for today!
-That University Girl
No comments:
Post a Comment