2004-04-24 | 7:28 p.m.
<< An Essay on Friendship >>

This is a paper I had to write for my Educational Psychology class. The topic was Something we have changed about ourselves/something we would like to change. It didn't really take me long to discover what changed. I thought I would share the essay with you now.

Letting Go

When I was a junior in high school, I was fortunate enough to meet the group of friends who would become my source of strength and inspiration in what would become a very turbulent senior year. These people were the first to make me feel like I was worth having as a friend. They encouraged me to face challenges with confidence because I knew that they were always there to help me if I fell. My friends helped me learn to appreciate the absurdities of life and to recognize that my idiosyncrasies were something to relish, not be embarrassed by. I went to school everyday with the knowledge that, no matter how difficult my day would be or how strenuous my work could become, I was appreciated and loved for who I was, not what I could become. The result of the love and support from my friends was a young woman who was completely comfortable with who she was.

Unfortunately, there was a negative consequence to meeting these amazing people. I became fiercely possessive of my friends and had trouble accepting that they would go to their respective colleges and make new friends. I almost saw it as an insult that they would continue their lives without me; that they would continue to flourish as we all did during high school but that I would not be there to contribute.

Interestingly enough, I never gave thought to the fact that I would also continue to mature and prosper without my former support system in the wings. I was too concerned with making sure they would always remember who it was that helped them become the people they were, for it was not just I who benefited from our friendships. I probably had the hardest time leaving my friends when it was time to move to college.

For the first few weeks of school, I made sure to talk to all of my friends from home every day for as long as possible. Making friends at school was much less of a priority to me than maintaining what I had with the people from my past. I went out with people, but I made sure to remind myself that I would be having more fun with my friends from home. It was not until someone here said something that I deemed “quote-worthy” that I became more comfortable with being away from my friends. Keeping a list of quotes was something I did at home, and being able to bridge it over to my new life made me realize it was okay for my friends to branch out and meet new people. They did not have to forget me in order to survive while we were apart.

From that point forward, I made a stronger effort to ask my friends about their new lives rather than reminiscing about our old lives together. I learned their new friends’ names and asked about them frequently. If I could not be actively involved in what was happening to them, I at least wanted to be informed.

As the school year ends, I will be leaving the people I have befriended at college to reunite with my friends from the past for the summer months. I used to worry that things would have changed when we went our separate ways, but now I understand that one of the signs of a strong friendship is the ability to be apart for extended periods of time and come back together knowing that personalities may be a little different, but the love of a friend will not fade. I have learned to let go and have faith that those I love will come back. There may be slight changes to their personalities, but the memories and the love will always remain present, no matter the time or distance between us.

Later Days!
Lex

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