It’s been a year or even a couple of years since you walked across the gymnasium stage and threw your cardboard graduation cap up high in the air. Since that moment, everything has changed. Your body physically changes, you may gain or lose weight, your hair will look different, and the clothing trends will change. But there’s something even more difficult to go through, which is the change of your mindset, and the change of your friends.

Your friends in high school were your posse. You guys did everything together, you went to prom on a party bus, spent your weekends hanging out in someone’s basement watching movies, and had the post-pep rally party in someone’s living room. You think that you would never leave these people, but reality sets in, and you find yourself moving on.

Here’s a sigh of a relief: it is totally and completely normal. You start a new chapter in your life where you may go off the college, join the military, or even travel the world. You notice yourself growing up-everyone has to at some point, unfortunately some people never do. The petty drama that happened in high school dissolves and goes over your head. You’re in the real world, and there are bigger and better things to worry about than who said what about your hair at that party last weekend. You find new hobbies and interests, and you make a whole new set of friends.

What I’ve noticed about being at college is that you flock towards people that have things in common with you. Being a nursing student, I gained a huge group of friends that have the drive, the motivation, and the personality of what it takes to become a nurse. In high school, you’re put with people- you have to sit at the same lunch table with them every day. I was the only one going into the medical field, so no one really understood what it took and how much I have to work and study. Now, I have a blast with my nursing school friends after a big test. We will all go to the local hangout and destress as we talk about the things we have in common.

After high school, your friendships become more real. You go through real life situations, good and bad, that your real friends stand by you through...even when you do something wrong. Your real friends see the more mature you, and some of your friends from high school never really leave high school.

It is totally and completely normal to let go of your friends in high school. I’m finding that out now along with trying to find out who I belong with and who is really there to support me. My high school friends will always have a special place in my heart. I would never let go of them out of spite or maliciously, but for me, it’s time to move on to people who I have more in common with.