It’s the fall after graduating from high school and you spent the entire summer with your friends. The sunny days went by so fast it was almost unfathomable. Caught up in the summer fun, you don’t think it can ever come to an end. You temporarily forget about the classes you signed up to take for the upcoming semester. However, the leaves begin to fall off their branches, and the weather starts to cool. You remember that it is time to say goodbye.

Farewells are one of the most difficult parts of going off to college. The people you have grown used to seeing on a regular basis are no longer going to be apart of your everyday life. Whether it’s a family member or a close friend, the tears burn your eyes all the same as you give one last hug. You tell yourself over and over, this isn’t good-bye forever. Then, you drive away, promising to call or text everyday.

But you might not.

The truth is, college keeps you on your toes. If you’re not in class or studying, you’re signing up for clubs, familiarizing yourself with the new town, and most importantly, making new friends.

If you’re as awkward as I am, making new friends isn’t easy. In order to do this, you have to open yourself up. This is especially difficult if, like me, you kept the same close friends throughout most of your life. It’s hard, but I can tell you right now you cannot get through college without making new friends. If you spend everyday eating alone in the cafeteria, and then locking yourself in your dorm room, you will start to feel depressed and lonely. It’s important to get to know new people. The question is, how do you do that?

I find the most important step to doing this is to let go people from your past.

This might seem like a harsh and outrageous idea to begin with. After all, how can you just let go of a friend means a lot to you?

Well I can tell you right now, if they are important to you, then you don’t have to worry about it. However, you might find with some people it’s easy to move on from them. In fact, in some cases, it might not require any effort at all. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. College is a good opportunity to see who really matters to you. If you’re on Facebook everyday during college and you see someone’s name on the side of the page, and you don’t even think about messaging them, it means they might not have mattered as much as you originally thought. This doesn’t mean you have to unfriend them, and it doesn’t mean you should force yourself into saying hello. In fact, I advise you don’t. If you spend everyday in college trying to force a re-connection with someone from your past, it will be much more difficult to make new friends.

Keep in mind, I am not saying you should delete everyone off of your Facebook or that you should get a new phone and start over. There are some people you might find you just cannot let go of. Family is forever, and so are friends. It’s important to keep the relationships with the people who are most important to you. These are the people you will keep in contact with on a regular basis or may visit. They are the ones who you can rely on when you are struggling.

You might be sitting here now, thinking about who really matters to you and who doesn’t. I can tell you right now, if you are a high school student, you won’t really know until you are out on your own. Once you leave, it will be obvious in a matter of days. Some names on your contact list you might scroll past every time and others, you might always click on. It’s my advise that you just let whatever happens, happen.

If you are starting out college like I am, you might be noticing some of this. It’s important you know that every other college student is also worried about who they are leaving behind. From experience, I can tell you that some of them you might not even be sad about. It doesn’t mean you should never talk to them again, it just means maybe you aren’t as close as you originally thought. It’s okay to move on.

Someone once said, “As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have a ton of friends and more important to have real ones.” For me, one of the best parts about growing up was figuring out who would always been there for me. For example, my best friend Kim and I have been through everything together.

Once you figure this out, you can go through the long, exhausting process of letting new people around you, in.