A freshman’s ode to her high school friends
To the giddiest of goons whom I have sadly learned to live without
To my high school friends, throughout high school I was so sure that I couldn’t live without you. I texted you everyday, you were there for every milestone in my high school career, and you were the people that I turned to when I needed someone to lean on. You helped me grow into who I was when I graduated this past spring, no matter how cheesy that sounds.
My high school friends and I posing for the ‘perfect’ instagram
For the entirety of our senior year of high school we obsessed over where we would end up attending school this fall. Little did we realize that when we left for school we would leave behind our pets, our families, and each other. At the beginning of fall semester we struggled with the distance, ranging from hundreds to thousands of miles between us. We went for weeks sometimes without even a snapchat to keep us connected. We were attached at the hip in high school and had sobbed when we said goodbye in August but we just couldn’t stay in contact.
I am now enrolled as a freshman where I have once again surrounded myself with friends whom I love, just like my high school friends. However, this is the first time in my life that the friends that I see everyday are not the ones that I grew up with and this is the first time that I don’t continuously repeat stories because my new friends weren’t there when my best stories occurred.
UMD friends after a basketball game
To my high school friends, you are still my sisters and my biggest cheerleaders, and I’m sorry that we don’t see each other every day. I’m sorry that fall semester we sucked at keeping in contact because we weren’t used to having to try. I’m sorry that I can’t promise to text you everyday this semester like I did in high school. Most of all, I’m sorry that you all live so far away that I can’t text you to dress me according to the weather like I could before.
College has changed me, I have grown into a new version of myself, I am no longer the person who graduated along side of my high school friends last spring. College has also changed my perspective on my friendships with my hometown friends. To be my best friends you don’t have to promise to be there for every good and bad moment in my life.
Senior Prom
We are now coming back from winter break, the longest time that I have been away from College Park since August. Winter break was also the first time that I was able to get used to seeing my high school friends again, we fell into the same routines we always had, and we once again cried when we said goodbye, or at least I did.
We don’t have to FaceTime or Skype every week to be able to pick up where we left off. Thank you to my former high school friends for being my current long-distant college friends, I miss you.