The bond you share with a friend is only as strong as your desire to maintain it. After high school and college, as time goes on and people move or find jobs and significant others, your once tight-knit group of friends may begin to scatter. Although it is inevitable that things change and people change, never let a person who is dear to your heart fade away just because life is getting busy.

In kindergarten or first grade, making a friend was as simple as asking, “Want to be friends?” on the playground. You had 20 of them at your birthday party and there was always someone around to ride bikes with. In second grade, the bloody politics of popularity come onto the scene, although that is a different topic entirely. By high school, most cliques are well established, and during the four years you spend in that godforsaken windowless building, you live with the security of knowing who you will eat lunch with, who will drive you home, and who you’ll spend your summer vacations with.

Things change in college; your popularity and friend groups in high school no longer matter to anyone (unless you yourself were popular, in which case, you should probably ride that wave for as long as possible). Friendship qualities like your intelligence and sense of humor and ability to watch six-hour marathons of 30 Rock take precedence over, say, who was in your prom group.

Your friends in college are some of the best you’ll ever have because you share a new and exciting life experience with them - one commonly known as “growing up.” During this time, it can be easy to forget about the high school friends who taught you everything you know about life and laughter and sneaking out late to talk to boys. You might keep in touch with an occasional phone call or Facebook message, but the ever-growing distance is hard to ignore.

After graduation, with even more new people to meet and things to do and places to go, you’ll have less and less time to spend with your friends. When you jump into the great abyss that is “adulthood” don’t let your college friends fade into the background, becoming a part of your past life, as with so many friendships before.

Make time to check in with your friends weekly and plan trips to visit each other if one of you should move. Let them know that you care about them. Even if you’re preoccupied with work or family or a new love, you still need your friends for their unconditional support, and that is something that will never change.

By: Kayla Parks | Image: Source