I went to a very small high school. I graduated with 102 people in my class and less than 1,000 students in my entire district. I went to school with the same people, day in and day out, for 13 years. Then, come May 30th, 2016, we all went our separate ways. Since we all left for college, I’ve only seen one of my friends who didn’t go to the same college as me. There were happy graduation parties and get togethers that soon transformed into emotional goodbyes and last-chances to hang out. And then, one by one, we all left for school

But the distance and separation we now face doesn’t mean that the love we have for each other is any less. When we see each other again, in the future, it will be just like we are back in high school, doing and saying all the things we did last year. The same old jokes will be said, the same stories brought up, but we will be different. We’ll have had different experiences than each other. We’ll have different stories to share and different people to talk about, and that’s okay. The best friends are the ones who you can go months without seeing and pick up right where you left off.

And then you have the friends who were younger than you, the ones you left behind in high school when you took off for your next great adventure. These are the friends who keep you tied to your hometown. They keep you up to date on all of the drama going on in your old school. You see pictures on Facebook of their Homecoming dance, and you get a feeling of nostalgia. You think about all the wonderful times you had in high school, and you wish you could go back. But then, you realize that that time in your life is over. You’ve outgrown it. You can’t go back to it, and the closest you can come is living vicariously through the pictures and stories that your younger friends share.

Most importantly, however, is that you’ll have met new friends in college. Friends that come from different places, different backgrounds, and different lives than you’ve ever experienced before. These friends might become even closer to you than your high school friends. Being away from home and being thrust into an entirely new situation together creates bonds that are tough to break. They’ll become your breakfast group, your new band friends, or the friends that you do everything with. You won’t know entirely why you click, but when you meet these friends, it’s as if something has just fallen into place that you didn’t realize was missing. But these friends definitely don’t replace your friends from high school--they just add to your list of friends. You can never forget your friends in high school, or the memories you made with them. But you can’t let the memories of your friends from high school stop you from making new memories with new friends in college.

In the first month of school, I was talking with someone I graduated with, and he asked me if my friends now were better than my friends from home. I answered him in the most truthful way possible. I said yes, they were, but at the same time they weren’t. They were just different. I was different. And while I cannot wait to see my friends again, I thank my lucky stars for the awesome friends I’ve made, and can’t wait to make wonderful memories with them.