I sang many songs as a Girl Scout in elementary school. While “Rare Bog Rattlin’ Bog” was easily my favorite as a fifth grader, a very different melody has been running through my head as of late. The song “Make New Friends” reminds us to “make new friends, but keep the old because one is silver and the other is gold.” Having just returned home after my first year at university, this simple song has begun to hold new meaning for me.

I remember saying a tearful goodbye to my two best friends almost nine months ago. It was so hard to leave these "gold friends" that I had known for over a decade and, one of which, had sang songs with me in matching green vests. From laughs to tears, I’ve shared everything with Aubrey and Alex. In some ways, my best friends were the most difficult things to leave when I moved to California for school. I was worried that I would not meet anyone who could even compare to my friends at home that I had known for so many years.

When I arrived on campus, I didn't know a soul. I made it my mission to find new friends. I joined Alpha Delta Pi and found friendship in almost 200 sisters. I joined the rowing team and made unbreakable bonds with my crew. I attended multiple Bible studies to find alliance in Christ.

I made so many friendships that I am sure will outlast my college career, but I still felt a longing for the kind of friendship I share with Aubrey and Alex. We know each other so well that in many ways you could compare us to the infamous best friends of Toni Morrison’s novel, Nel and Sula. We grew up alongside each other and have gone through trials at every stage of adolescence.

When I was packing up my dorm room to return home for the summer, I was overcome with mixed emotions. I so badly wanted to return to Arizona to see Aubrey and Alex, but I also did not want to leave my new friends in Santa Clara. I knew then that I had accomplished my mission of finding friends on campus. Though these friends will never know me in the same way that Aubrey and Alex have, they will know me in a totally new, and just as important, way. Over the next three years we will be able to experience college together and create memories, just as I have with my best friends from home. We will grow together in ways not dissimilar from the ways I have with Aubrey and Alex. I have been blessed enough to find friends that are even more precious than silver and gold in two different states and two different stages of my life.