It wasn’t until I was entering my second semester of my sophomore year that I took into consideration the friendships I have with my “home” friends and, honestly, how long I’ve been friends with them. About a week ago, I delved into my camera roll and Snapchat memories and laughed at, got embarrassed by, and even shed a tear at the adventures, conversations and overall antics my home friends and I got into. I had such strong feelings about this that I decided to write my thoughts and emotions in my diary.
The next day, I read the passage I had written and thought: I know a lot of people are probably thinking about or even re-considering their friendships with their home friends while they’re at college. Therefore, I decided to write this sort of stream of consciousness article to bring awareness or maybe even help some people who are thinking about their home friends and have similar feelings.
To start off, I attend Northeastern in Boston, Massachusetts, and I’m from Minneapolis, Minnesota. My home friends are from Minnesota. All of my home friends I have been friends with since eighth or ninth grade. Yes, it’s been that long. When you’re friends with people for that long, you truly see them grow as a person. I’ve known my home friends long enough to recognize and acknowledge how they have changed, and they’ve seen that in me as well.
I’m incredibly close to them, and I really do know them so well. That is why it’s interesting that when we first went to college (we all went to different schools), we hardly talked to one another. We hardly called, FaceTimed or even texted. The summer before freshman year, all of my home friends and I harped on calling each other constantly during college and always FaceTiming whenever we had the chance to not lose touch.
Instead, there was a lack of communication caused by an abundance of new responsibilities; freshman year of college is an incredibly busy time. This may sound inconsiderate, but none of us really had the time to catch up with each other. We didn’t have the time to make those three-hour long FaceTime calls or play those iMessage games we used to.
However, the most interesting thing about it was, when Thanksgiving break rolled around and we all hung out, it was as if none of us had left. There was no awkwardness, no hesitation regarding talking or doing anything. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t seen them for nearly three months; it was as though I hadn’t seen them in three days. Even though we were separated and hardly talked or called during those first few months, it was completely normal when we got back together and hung out. It seemed like old times hanging out as high school students instead of as college freshmen. We were back to our usual goofy antics: showing each other funny TikToks, talking about school drama or driving around blasting music, just like we had done in the past years.
I think the closeness and genuine friendship I had established with my home friends was definitely a factor in the lack of awkwardness after meeting up again. Because I know my home friends like they’re my siblings, I truly don’t think that an elongated separation or a vast amount of location difference will determine how close we are to each other. It’s a type of friendship that you can completely desert for months at a time, and when you finally come back to it, it’s as if nothing had happened.
Another important thing to note is that college was the first time any of us had lives without one another. During middle school and high school, we all lived our lives in the same houses, the same schools; we all had friends in the same area. Since college started, a second life started for us. I have a life in Minnesota, but I also have a life here in Boston. I have friends from home; I have friends here. I have a house at home, and I have a house here. I live two completely separate lives, and so do my home friends. Despite us living lives without each other for the first time, we are still able to maintain that connection and that closeness with each other, and I think that’s incredibly beautiful.
I like to think that I am a different person than I was in high school. My home friends are different people than they were in high school. We are not as innocent as we used to be. Since we became friends, we all have been through many different life experiences, both positive and negative. We’ve hit many milestones. All in all, we have changed tremendously. However, despite these changes, my home friends and I are still able to maintain that connection, that closeness that was first embedded in us all those years ago.
When I was a senior in high school, I didn’t think that I would be able to maintain relationships with my “home” friends, and that thought broke my heart. Ideally, I wanted to maintain the friendships, but considering we were all moving away to different colleges, that seemed unlikely. However, a couple years have gone by with us still able to maintain the closeness of our friendships, and I think that is such an extraordinary thing.