In the past week I’ve come to a single conclusion: relationships
are hard. Just to clarify, I’m not talking about romantic relationships. (That
would be an entirely different blog post all together.) But like friendships.
They’re hard.
I like to think that I’m pretty decent at making friends. I
mean, I was never a loner in school or had no where to sit during lunch, that
wasn’t my high school experience. I’m good at meeting people and acquiring different
acquaintances, loads of acquaintances actually. Maintaining friendships is
where I seem to be having a problem.
Like, honestly, right now I’m looking at Taylor Swift and
the incredible group of girlfriends that she has and my respect for her has
tripled because in no way could that be easy. In high school you see your
friends everyday. You sit next to the same people in class, you have constant
communication with people you’ve known for your whole life and on top of that
you know almost everything about them. In that type of environment maintaining
friendships is easy. It’s manageable.
Then you go to college (or University if you’re not in the
United States) and suddenly those friends you’ve seen everyday for eighteen
years are gone. I don’t know about you but I’m very much an ‘out of sight, out
of mind person’, my attention span totally falls on the short side. I’m also
the type of person who gets completely caught up in their own head and with what’s
currently in front of them. This, I’ve found, makes maintaining friendships
nearly impossible.
Friendships are constant work. They really are. You can’t
take a break with them. You can’t push one to the back burner and hope that it
won’t get damaged. It doesn’t work like that. The other’s person’s life doesn’t
get put on pause. It keeps going and evolving without you.
Here’s the advice I would tell myself a year ago if I could
(so if you’re a college freshman, listen up): you need to work for the people
you want to remain in your life. Yeah, friendships are hard work but at the end
of the day they are entirely worth it. Having someone who loves you,
despite knowing all your flaws and weaknesses, is completely worth it. Knowing
someone’s there who has your back completely and will always be there for you
makes it so worth while.
So if you’re thinking about someone who’s friendship you’ve
pushed to the back burner, do something for me. Text them. Call them. Tweet
them. DM them. Do something. Don’t think about doing it. Don’t say, “Man, I
should really text so and so to see how they are.” Don’t push it until
tomorrow. Do it. Don’t say you miss them and then do nothing about it. Don’t
let them walk out of your life. If you want their friendship, then fight for
it.
Love,
A. xx
