...how people we once thought ourselves to be inseparable from are no longer in our lives?
Perfect example. I was looking at my old middle school yearbooks with some friends tonight and laughing about what was in them. How we marked out people we didn't like, wrote snide comments next to people who were mean and stuck up (you got that a lot in Bridgeport), or how we thought certain guys had "VCRs" (very cute rears)... yeah, we were cool. Then I started reading the signatures that I had gotten. One was from this girl who I had been best friends with for as long as I could remember. She had written about a few guys we were friends with and how she liked them, and how "in 50 years, we'll laugh about this because I'll probably have married one of them."
Truth is, when we got to high school, we drifted apart faster than you could have said "best friend." We spoke occasionally, but I was too concerned with keeping my grades up and doing all the extra-curricular stuff I wanted. She was, well, too concerned with extra-curricular activities of her own, if you know what I mean. I went years without seeing her or talking to her, and I'm not even sure if she was at graduation or not. I saw her about 8 months ago at Speedway, and then we found each other on Facebook not too long ago. But nothing could ever have come close to what we were like in middle school.
Which brings me to my point. When we're younger, we think that nothing can tear us apart from our friends or the little lives we've set up for ourselves. If we are fortunate enough to stay in one place long enough, we find those best friends and build those relationships we call "everlasting," and we think they will actually last 50 years. Some do, I guess. But we usually can't see past the upcoming summer session or, God forbid, what will happen when we get to high school.
Then, even with high school friends, things are never the same after graduation. In high school, you are no longer separated by grades. You get mixed in with different classes, people older or younger than you, and your social circle begins to go beyond educational levels. You become friends with people older than you who leave you when they graduated, or you become friends with people younger than you that you leave when you graduate.
Then college happens. I chose to attend a college that not one person from my graduating class was attending. 80% of that was on purpose, mind you, because 90% of my graduating class were pretentious, stuck up snobs who made sure everyone around them knew they were made of money. So, anyway. Friends choose different colleges, go off and make their own mark on the campus, find new people to hang out with, and people grow apart. If you're lucky, you keep in touch with the people who meant the most to you. But even then, sometimes they change so much you don't even care to recognize them anymore.
I guess it's just so funny to me how we make these "life-long friendships" that usually don't last until next period. We, as a society, put so much pressure on ourselves to fit in and have friends that we forget the responsibility that comes with the title. We want to be the popular one, the one that always has a significant other, the one that's never eating alone at lunch, the one with the most signatures in our yearbook. We want that validation that, no matter what happens in life, we'll never go through it alone. But why wouldn't you want to go through something alone?
Being alone allows you time to think, to process, to sort things out within yourself so you can be the best person you can be in these "life-long" friendships. When did we become so dependent on other people? When you think about it, these people who help you through your first boyfriend, your first school dance, or your first kiss... they won't be there for you the first time you get wasted at a frat party, or when you bomb your first college exam, or when you're walking across that stage on the day of your college graduation, half hungover from the night before. They won't be there for you "50 years later" to laugh about that guy you kinda liked in 7th grade.
People move in and out of our lives for reasons. I honestly believe that. We probably will never know the reasons, or we'll never be smart enough to figure out why the girl that signed my yearbook in 6th grade with "LYLASF" (love ya like a sis forever) probably has no idea I'm alive at this point. But we accept it. We have to, because have no other choice. It's not anything that we did, or that they did. It just happens.
I'm glad to have had the opportunity to grow up with the same group of kids from elementary school through graduation. I'm glad I didn't have to move around like some of my friends. I was fortunate enough to say that I have a best friend I made in high school. That I still talk to her at least once a day on the phone, even though we live in separate states. That I was afforded the opportunity to become part of someone else's journey. I believe that kids who move around a lot when they're younger never fully grasp the importance of lasting friendships.
Ok, I know the last sentence I just wrote basically went against everything I've been ranting about. But hear me out. When you're uprooted as a young kid, even if it's just once, you lose the chance to be someone's best friend (even if it's just until summer ends). You learn to build those relationships; you learn how to interact with people; you learn the importance of being someone's friend; you learn to keep up with people and keep in touch with them and actually CARE what's going on in their lives.
I guess I was just lucky. I do still wonder where my childhood best friend is.. what she does, how she is, where she wants to be in 10 years. I wonder if we'll ever find each other again (other than Facebook, which is a simplistic, meaningless way of being someone's friend) in difference circumstances and laugh about that guy she almost dated in 7th grade (which, seriously.. can you really date someone in 7th grade? that's a whole other rant...)
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