Since graduation, I’ve struggled with keeping ties with close friends I had during high school. Two of my best friends I had senior year I haven’t spoken to in months. Some days I feel like I should call them and see how they’ve been, what they’re up to, but I never have and I don’t feel guilty or remorseful, and they should never feel that towards me.

One of the greatest yet most difficult lesson I’ve learned during my first three semesters of college is people will come and go from your life, but that does not mean the relationship you had with any friend means anything less to you or to them. The fact of the matter is your paths split; you both began a new life. Honestly, the person I was at the beginning of college is unrecognizable to the person I am today. That alone is the reason why high school friends grow apart. In the first year of college, we change our priorities and characters so much we begin to grow closer to those who are with us along for the journey.

This has become crystal clear to me when I realized I was a more likeable person to some of my high school classmates who transferred to WSC this semester. Sure, we knew each other in high school, but after being apart freshman year and spending time with them now, I feel like a new person to them, and frankly, I like this version of myself much more. Now more than ever, I see them as college friends compared to high school acquaintances. We have all evolved within ourselves to a certain degree making our personalities more compatible and our relationships stronger.

On the flip side, one person has stuck by my side from high school through college, so yes, it is possible to keep your friends. But I will warn you, if you have a friend in mind who could follow you through the transition to college, they must have one hell of a tolerance level. The only reason I still have this person in my life is because they were never afraid to tell me when I was wrong and hold me accountable for my mistakes I made in the first year of college. We also made time for each other, dropping what ever it was we were doing to help each other and listen when the other needed it most. If they are truly your friend, they can do this for you, and as a result, you will continue to grow into the person you are today, and that friend will grow with you.

Don’t be scared of this change; embrace it. I would never take back any of the decisions I’ve made because I have the best friends a girl could ask for. One of my current house-mates was my first friend I made in college, and if I would've made the effort to go visit old high school friends on the weekends, I would’ve never gotten to know her and realized she’d be one of my best friends. After my freshman year, I continued to change, and I finally let go of the final friend I had from high school, but because of that, I met yet another person who I know will stick with me for years to come.

This change is not just temporary. I have a hunch telling me this cycle of my character evolving and the people in my life changing will continue to happen. Knowing two years from now I’ll be moving on to graduate school, I know I’ll feel just as I did freshman year, and the names that pop into my head on a daily basis could (and most likely will) change in those first few months. It will all happen again if I end up getting a job in another new city after graduate school, and when I move job to job, and place to place.

So realize now, this cycle of people coming and going from your life will always happen. Respect and recognize the incredible friendships you had, but recall it’s okay to move on. Those people who were in your life will always hold a special place in your heart, but it’s the people who continue to allow you to grow that will stick with you no matter where you are. If those who are by your side now are those you feel will always be with you, believe it, and hold onto those friendships. It’s when change and advesity challenge you, those friends will prove to you if they will remain after your character has been refined by experience.