Since I moved away from home to go to college, I’ve found so many reasons that it’s difficult to be away from home. So many changes occur, and you have to make countless adjustments. A new routine. A new “usual.” I know we’ve heard this all before. But as my first semester is almost over, the one thing I’ve realized to be the hardest- relationships. Cultivating and nurturing relationships with people I truly care about that I no longer see on a daily basis, which made it seem like it was laid out for me. It’s been tough trying to figure out who means that much to me, whether it’s worth it to keep communication with someone constantly or not.

Many of my close friends from high school are the type of friend where I don’t have to talk to them every day or even every week to know that we are still friends and still close, which is nice. On the other hand, I still want to talk to them because I want to know how they’re doing and keep up with their life. So when it comes down to it, you have to figure out who is truly a priority and who isn’t. Because in college, if we’re being honest, you don’t have time each week to catch up with every single friend from high school. It really is tricky. I’ve found that the true friendships are the ones that come easier, and they don’t seem to feel like work. The people that really mean a lot to you and vice versa are the ones that you’ll make time for. If you love someone and care about them, you’ll find time to talk to them. Granted, there are many people I love and care about that I haven’t talk to in a while, but they aren’t as high up on my list as my parents, siblings, grandparents, and closest friends. That doesn’t mean I don’t love them. It just means the people closest to my heart are the relationships I am choosing to cultivate. And it really is a difficult, conscious, every day decision.

Every day we choose the relationships in which we invest our time and love. The people with whom our hearts intertwine. It’s important to choose the right people. In college, we reach a level of maturity where we can choose the right people. We should be able to do that. In high school, it was different. We saw the same people every day, not to mention the people we grew up with. And now, we are away from them. So do we keep in contact? Do we continue to try and have a friendship with them just for the sake of saying we’re childhood friends? It’s up to us. Human connection keeps us going. The relationships that matter to us will come easily, and fostering them will always be essential.