I think one of the hardest things about growing up is the reality that most of your time is spent alone. You’re driving to work in your car alone, you come home from whatever the days activities were and eat dinner alone, and you make some big decisions alone, and I think thats the harsh reality of growing up and being an adult.
But what makes the feeling of growing up worse? When those people who never left your side for however many years before you moved away or went to college don’t reach out or even just reach back to you when you reach out to them.
Everyone always told me that once graduation happens you lose over 50% of your friends and I didn’t believe it one bit, but after moving 3 hours away from home and making lots of new friends, I’ve noticed it. People stop reaching out. They stop calling when they’re upset. They stop sending “I miss you” texts and man does it hit you hard at first. Although, there are still those friends that reach out, send all the texts, and hug you like they haven’t seen you in years when they finally get to see you, there are still those few that haunt your memories.
One of the beauties of closing old doors is opening new ones. There will always be another new friend and another new opportunity coming your way and a lesson I had to learn was that you can’t stand in the past and relive the old memories over and over. You have to branch out. You have to pick up your old photographs, stuff them in your purse, and go take new ones with all these new lovely humans surrounding you.
It is a great thing to live in the now. To capture life for all that it is and will be and just run with the shoes that are on your feet at the moment.
So even though it hits you hard at first, suddenly its like a feather in the wind and its gone in an instant. Suddenly, its been 6 months since you’ve spoke and you’re doing okay. Suddenly you forget their favorite book even though you know they’ve told you 176 times, you forget their order at all their favorite restaurants because you haven’t been since last summer, and every time their favorite song comes on the radio you sing it at the top of your lungs because you know every word, but you don’t fret because even though they didn’t reach out, you’re still doing okay and you’re sure they are too and that’s all you could ever want for them.