Being home has been weird for two reasons. One is the regressiveness of my behaviors, and the other is the relationship with my best friend from high school.

Near the beginning of freshman year, when everyone was coming home from fall break, the general sentiment was, “Wow, how much I’ve changed, or just finally realized that I do NOT connect with my high school friends.” I couldn’t understand the dropping of old friendships so quickly. Had they ever been real friends? Or had they just been pretending so they could get through high school and start their real life once they had moved away? I didn’t understand those people that left everything behind because my best friend was still Sophia, my platonic soulmate from high school.

It was strange going to college because it was like tearing my heart in two. Never again could I have everyone I cared about in one physical location. I really, really enjoy life in Portland, but I was always somewhat longing to be home.

In high school, Sophia and I spent every waking moment with each other, day and night, and going to college hadn’t hindered our special connection. However, coming home for summer break was a little different. We started out the summer, I was taking classes at a community college and Sophia brought her boyfriend home so we didn’t see that much of each other. After her boyfriend left, we resumed our constant contact, but something had definitely changed.

I felt like I was reverting somewhat to the person I was in high school. Being in a certain environment has a way of making you act and feel like you did when you were in that environment before. I started feeling more passive-aggressive and competitive, which up until that point I hadn’t realized I had grown out of.

Sophia seemed way more stubborn and unable to compromise, which I now realize is not a recently acquired character flaw, but my negative perception of her growth into someone who knows exactly what she wants and won’t sacrifice anything to achieve what makes her happy. Even with the personal changes we both had undergone, we retained something I had always loved about our relationship: our ability to openly talk through our problems.

Now, however, it seemed that the root of the conflicts we were having differed from anything that came up in our friendship before. We had both gone off to college and came back as different people, we had gained independence and didn’t rely on our friendship in the same way.

The conflicts we were having were a result of growing while being apart. So our ability to talk openly about what bothered us didn’t equal conflict resolution. To ‘resolve’ would mean to regress to how we were, and so that isn’t a conflict I want to resolve.

We still love each other deeply, but the person we love is changing. In high school, we had helped each other to grow and pushed each other in all the right ways until we were ready to become our full selves. I think without each other, we wouldn’t possess the same capability to thrive when apart, but because we provided such an amazing support system for one another as we grew up, we both were able to continue that trajectory without the other at our side.

I feel just as connected to her on a fundamental soulful level, even when our skins are drifting apart.