It is the first day of kindergarten – recess just started and there is this girl staring directly at you, so it feels right to say, “Hey, do you want to play princesses?” Boom, best friends immediately! Playing on the playground all throughout elementary school, those friends made the first day of class may stick around for a while. There is a connection that is created between young school children in the interest of playmates. Everyone is friendly and just wants to have fun. There is no judgement on the playground…at least in the beginning.
A couple of years go by and the friend that you made on the playground is moving away. You probably will not ever talk to her again. You cry as she leaves the classroom. But hey, she is probably replaceable – isn’t everyone replaceable? Students are so privileged in the fact that they can see their best friends five days a week. But what happens after high school? People move to college, trade school, and descend into the workforce. Do they keep in contact with those friends they made in high school? Take for instance, the person you were practically best friends with, having met when he was a junior and you were a freshman through your shared Wolfpacket class. For the two years you crossed paths, you loved to sit by his chair and gossip. You text them, asking, “Hey how’s college, how are you? Are you part of the newspaper yet?” He responds, “It’s great!” Unfortunately, the conversation does not continue. He is probably busy with his course workload, club activities and new friends. He doesn’t have much to talk to a high schooler. This is a fear that many students have. Will my friends still talk to me after they’ve moved on to college? Will I leave my younger friends in the dust? This person that I love so much is going to disappear from my life and I can not do anything about it.
People grow apart, priorities change, and friends move across the country and start having kids. After some point, it is time to let go. You do not need to talk to Jessica on a regular basis, you will text back and forth occasionally. Sure, she was your intramural soccer teammate in college. You needed her at that time, she had a great left cross and was very good at holding your hair after a night of excess. You love her despite the stinky socks she would forget in your dorm room. Later, she will invite you to her house, and you will say, “Oh, I can’t make it that weekend” and the cycle keeps repeating. But what happens if you say, “Oh, I am free that weekend, I will come down!” That friendship might flourish. You might not see her everyday, but that is what life is like when you are an adult. People find these connections not through the random chance of going to the same school, but through the very deliberate shared interests they have.
You might join a knitting club, and you see them every week. They are kind, and you will find that connection through those shared interests. It is always important to learn how to find connections in different ways. School might be the backbone to friendships now, but later people need to create their own backbone to not just stay connected to school friends, but also make new connections as well.
It is critical that you step out of your original comfort zone, and find that friend, because the inevitable will happen: everyone will lose friends throughout their lives, and life goes on regardless. However, though one is replaceable, everyone is findable.
