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Thinking back, many of us could agree our high school years were some of the best. We would do crazy things with our friends and had little to no real cares in the world. No responsibilities either, for the most part. We all thought that our high school friends would be our friends forever. We promised each other that we’d always be there for each other and we’d always stay connected. Yet, many of us have seen that those “forever” ties we had with those people we have known our whole lives, sometimes, don’t last. It is unfortunate and extremely hard to grasp. It may be hard to understand why that person hasn’t reached out to you. You may think they’ve changed for the worse or just don’t care enough about you anymore. You will try to blame them, but it really is not anyone’s fault. It is time to accept the fact that those friends you had in your younger days were great friends, at that time. As you grow, they grow. It may be in different directions, and that is okay.
It’s upsetting thinking a person you once told all your deepest darkest secrets to isn’t a part of your life anymore. It’s weird to think that you know so much about each other, yet you don’t even send a happy birthday text. The whole thing can just feel unsettling. In order to move past it and get it off of your mind you need to put it into another perspective. You need to try not to blame them or even yourself, but take it in as it is a reality. I’ve heard multiple times from adults or even older students that some friend groups do not last. Nobody believed them, and why would we? We were in our prime; having the time of our lives. Why would we all split and go our separate ways? But once high school graduation came and choices were made about where we were going to college, our lives changed. This was the moment when we actually saw the true colors of the people we were with and chose who would stay in our lives. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, we all made a choice. And believe it or not, that was one of your first steps toward growing into the person you are today.
Think about your friend group in high school. The ones you hung out with every day, the ones you just saw at parties, and the ones you couldn’t stand but didn’t have a choice but to see them. If you put everything into perspective, you weren’t going to be the best of friends forever. You weren’t going to text that person to come visit you at school or catch up when you were home, because you finally got to think of yourself and what you wanted. And it’s not being selfish, it’s being who you finally want to be. You don’t need to see those people just because they live in the same small town as you or because you feel like you “have” to. You can make your own choice of who you stay connected to, and that’s why college is life changing. It truly does suck thinking back on all of the memories you made with those people and knowing if you were all together again that it would just be completely different, maybe even a little awkward. But, now thinking about it in a more mature way, you can see it is for the better. You don’t need to feel pressured or like you need to act a certain way based on who’s around you, because you have your true best friends that you are grateful for. You know you can always go home to them and they’ll have open arms. You know it’s going to be drama free and you can trust them with everything. You have an endless, real support system.
So yes, it may be hard to accept the harsh reality that not everyone in your life is there to stay. But I promise you that once you get all of the grudges out of the way and the immature accusations of why your friendship ended, you can see everything in your life has worked out for the better. Your old high school friends made a big impact on your past life and you should be grateful for that. But now it’s time to look at your present and at your future and accept it all. Every person in your life was put there for a reason, and it is okay to let certain people go.