High school graduation, a day many people say is one of the best days of their life, was arguably both the best and the worst day of mine. It was the end of an era; the four years I spent learning, failing, and overcoming challenges was wrapped up into walking across a stage with my classmates, and receiving a piece of paper with my name on it. While I was overjoyed to be moving on from the hallways of my teenage years, I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to something else.
Having to pack up a lifetime of friendships and memories and move to university without the people I loved wasn’t something I was ready to do. I had so much accumulated time with my friends, inside jokes no one else would understand, and moments I cherished so dearly. The long subway rides, 4 a.m. McDonald's runs, mid-day naps, and nights on my side porch sat in the back of my head and deep in my heart, and I didn’t want to leave the people behind that I’d spent these good times with.
I didn’t want to say goodbye to all of the people I valued so much, and given my friends were going to university all over the world, I didn’t know when I’d see them again. I wasn’t ready to let go, but I was ready to have new experiences at university, and that’s the only thing that made it slightly less painful to leave.
The easiest thing to do when you start somewhere new and have to make new friends is to try and find familiarity. You analyze the people you’re with and try to see the outlines of the people you knew previously. Maybe it’s your roommate who has the same laugh as a friend from your sports team, or a boy in your class whose jokes remind you of your brother.
You pick out nuances in the things they do, and there’s a lot of “you remind me of so and so…” and “you’re JUST like my friend x from back home.” It’s different and it’s weird but it feels somewhat comfortable.
You find social patterns to fall into that fit you the same way the past years' patterns have, and you learn to understand the parts that don’t fit quite as well.
When you get into these new patterns, what can happen is you start to forget. You create new memories with new faces, learn the nuances of these new people, and find that they remind you themselves, not someone from the past. The comparisons to back home become fuzzy because you can’t remember if they’re right. Your high school group chat begins to dry up and the people you’re with right then at the moment become your whole world.
You call your neighbor from down the hall when you have a crisis, not your best friend from home. You comfort new friends through breakups, bad test grades, and hungover mornings and slowly but surely begin to feel more and more invested in the friendships you have at this new place. Your heart is in it. You belong somewhere. You’re happy.
This is arguably the best part about coming to college. Making new friends when you start somewhere new makes the whole process of starting over so worth it. You may not find your best friends right away, but you know that at some point, you’ll find your people.
This is also arguably one of the hardest parts of coming to college. You get to a point in your new life where you realize that your old friends are just that–old friends. The different eras of your life seem to move farther and farther apart, and there are parts of your old self that you can’t quite recognize. Even though change is healthy and finding your place in this new era of your life is important, at a certain point you should take the time to step back and remember.
Remember your first time sneaking out. Your first day of high school, the first time you got your heart broken, the first time you went out, your first bad grade, or your first prom. Remember these moments and who surrounded you at the time. Remember who was there to celebrate your highs and comfort you at your lows.
Look at old photographs of you and your friends and think about all the ways they helped you grow into the person you are now. Text the dried-up group chat, call your best friend out of the blue, or post a throwback photo on Instagram. Even though you’re moving on and becoming a new person, it’s important to remember where you came from and the people who made you who you are today.
