Lily Huynh/The Cougar
It’s easy to believe that everything you have in this very moment is permanent: your style, lingo, interests and even your friends. That’s why when you graduate high school, move away from home or start college, change can feel so shocking.
Even if you say you’ll keep in touch, the people you spent every day with suddenly become people you only see through social media posts and occasional texts.
You spend so many years growing up with some of them that you start to believe the friendship is permanent. After all, if you survived elementary school, puberty and high school together, how much damage could a few miles really do?
Well, that’s one of the first lessons college gives you. Not everyone is meant to stay forever and that’s okay. Some people are only meant to be a phase in your life, whether they teach you a lesson, get you through a hard time or are simply around for a while.
Outgrowing people is part of growth
The truth is, this has probably happened before. Childhood friends move away, classmates switch schools and people slowly drift apart. The difference is that growing up, there were still so many constants in your life that those changes did not feel as noticeable.
You still went to the same school, lived in the same house and saw the same people every day. When one friendship faded, everything else stayed the same. But college is different. Everything changes at once, making it much harder to ignore when you’re beginning to outgrow someone.
What makes it difficult is that there is rarely closure in these situations. Neither of you were being bad friends; no one was purposefully avoiding the other, there was no bad blood, you just drifted away from one another. Suddenly, someone who used to know every detail of your life simply becomes a person attached to old memories.
There is also a grief that comes with that. Grief is usually associated with death, but there is a unique kind of grief that comes from losing people who are still alive. You know they’re still out there, you see their Instagram posts and occasionally check their location to see what they’re up to, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. The inside jokes stop making sense, conversations become less frequent and eventually, the relationship exists more in memory than in reality.
But outgrowing people is often a sign that you’re growing too.
By starting college, you’re entering a new world, one that is bigger than anything you’ve experienced before. College introduces you to new experiences, challenges and perspectives that slowly shape you into someone different than the person who walked across the stage at high school graduation.
The same thing is happening to the people around you. The friend who once knew everything about your life is figuring out who they are, just as you’re figuring out who you are. In a way, there is something comforting about knowing that even with the distance, you still have things in common.
You’re both growing up. I did not fully understand it until I experienced it myself.
Growing in different directions
When I started college, I stayed in Houston and so did many of my high school friends. It made it easy to believe we would never miss a beat. We still lived in the same city, still followed each other on social media and could easily meet up whenever we wanted.
But over the next few months, the hangouts became less frequent. I found myself reaching out to my college friends more often instead. Our once lively group chat only seemed to come alive for someone’s birthday or a holiday. Before I knew it, the people I used to see every day had become people I only occasionally checked in on.
The strange part was that nothing happened. There wasn’t a fight, betrayal or a dramatic falling out. We were simply building separate lives. As our schedules filled with new classes, jobs, organizations and friendships, we slowly became less involved in each other’s day-to-day lives. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it was still difficult to accept.
Some people are there for a specific chapter of your life. Maybe they helped you survive middle school, celebrated your biggest accomplishments or sat with you during some of your worst days. They were never meant to stay forever; they were meant to be there when you needed them most.
It’s easy to look at a faded friendship and focus on what was lost. What’s harder and perhaps what’s more important, is appreciating what was gained.
The memories still exist. The lessons still matter. The person you became was shaped, in part, by the people who walked beside you, even if only for a little while.
And if there is one thing college teaches you, it’s that endings and beginnings often happen at the same time.
Opinion@thedailycougar.com
