Moving on from high school and being at university has me thinking a lot about adult friendships. My friendships no longer fit into a mold, and that’s both wonderful and scary.
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| With friends at Pigeon Point, Tobago |
Last week, I took a #GirlsTrip to Tobago with 4 friends from secondary school. It was a much-needed, long-awaited trip, but in the days leading up I was more nervous and agitated than excited. I hadn’t seen these girls in over 6 months, including my long time bestie from high school whom I’ve officially known for just over 10 years. Our relationships hadn’t been the same since we'd graduated, and it’s been interesting navigating these changes. Like everything else in high school, friendships were molded by the structure and routine of school. We had classes together, ate lunch together, studied together and went out on weekends or during school breaks. There was always a time and a place for friendship, and leaving school suddenly left me in a place where I had to re-evaluate the meaning of friendship, and the time and effort that they take. My friendships no longer fit into a mold, which is both wonderful and scary, and worth thinking about.
For a long time I’ve been thinking about the way we label friendships. At 12 years old, I remember that at school we put so much emphasis on who was BFFs with whom, and we came up with all sorts of labels for each other. I had a bestie, who at some point became my BFFFL (best friend forever for life), but another girl in class upped that by becoming her BFFFLAD (best friend forever for life and death). Then there was my TFBFL (track and field buddy for life) who got upgraded to my TFPBFL (track and field
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| High school friends circa 2012 |
and pan buddy for life) when we played for junior panorama together. These labels were cute, and they stuck - I still call my bestie “bestie”, and the acronym “TFPBFL” holds so many fond memories for me. But as an adult (yes, at 22 I’m gonna claim my adulthood like never before💪🏾) it’s harder to call someone my best friend, because what does that mean, really? We were discussing this in Tobago a couple days ago, and my bestie said: “You know these millennials - they don’t like to be labelled.” It’s true, we don’t. And we don’t need to be. And even if we choose to label each other, the concept of a best friend is different for everyone.
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| Friends - old and new |
It’s more than that, though. The concept of a best friend, and even friendship itself, changes over time, too. Friendships evolve as we evolve, and this has been a hard pill for me to swallow since starting university. Of course, moving thousands of miles away from home means that your friendships won’t be the same. It was unrealistic of me to expect that they would. Yet amidst the new and troubling distance between me and my high school friends, there was the exciting prospect of meeting new people and developing new relationships.
Still, I struggle to keep up with friends from home, because it’s way harder to stay on top of someone’s life when you only see them a couple times a year. And though that’s what Skype and WhatsApp and FaceTime are for, making the time to video chat with someone is a choice and a habit, one I’m still trying to develop. These friendships no longer come as naturally as they did in high school; they’ve changed, we’ve changed, and we’ve gotta adjust for these changes. My mom recently reminded me that in life, we have to “work with what is”, not what coulda, shoulda or woulda been. Perfect advice for idealistic me, who finds herself dwelling on the past and the shoulda-woulda-coulda's, while missing what’s standing right in front of me - people who care about me and vice versa.
The other thing about best-friendship or friendship in general is that there’s no one person who knows everything about you, and with whom you can share every single aspect of your life. I wrote about this in an earlier post as I lamented the fact that no one can “really, truly 100% get you”. Disheartening at first, but also a relief to know that we’re all too multi-dimensional and beautifully complicated to be completely understood by any one person. We share different things with different people, and for every person that you share your life with, they see you differently and hold a different part of your soul. Isn’t that wonderful?
What fuels and makes a friendship anyway? I think that's different for everyone. Each relationship is special in its own way, characterized by its own set of unsaid rules and inside jokes. I can think of friendships that thrive on spontaneous, long conversations, and others that thrive on occasional check-ins via WhatsApp. Sometimes, hearing and seeing how other people’s friendships play out makes me wonder whether I’m doing it right. Is it fine that I don’t have a group chat of best friends that tell each other everything? Is it uncool that there have been several times this year when I wanted to go out and couldn’t think of a single
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Throwback to the time I attended Viennese Ball on my own,
because I didn't have friends to roll out with. Luckily, I ended up
meeting lots of friends there. |
person to go with? Is it okay that I can count on my two hands the number of people I feel like I truly connect with? I have to constantly remind myself that I’m okay, and that my constellation of friendships is unique. It doesn’t need to be compared to anyone else’s.
In fact, the time I spend worrying and comparing my friendships to others' could be spent reinforcing the friendships that I have: sending a text, making a call, writing a note. Often, it’s the small things that matter, not just when it comes to friendship, but also in life. Isn’t it the nicest feeling when you receive a “Hey just checking in to see if you’re okay” text? Too often I hesitate to reach out because I feel bad about not responding to their last message, or flaking on a hangout, but I want to move past that and cherish my friends even in small ways. Life is too short.
So here’s to our friends. The friends that you can stay up and talk to all night, the friends you party with, the friends you study with, the friends you catch a meal with once a month but it feels like no time has passed. The friends from back home that you talk to less than you should, the friends that you tag in memes, the friends that you
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| Friends who share my passion - steelpan! |
see once in a blue moon but would still invite to your birthday dinner. The friends you don’t consider close but who enjoy your company nonetheless. The friends you make through shared interests and passions. The music friends, the church friends, the class friends, the dorm friends. The friends you never see, but know you could count on. The friends that used to be, but are no longer. The friends that are older, or younger, but still get you. The friend in your mother, or your father, or another family member that loves and supports you unconditionally. The friend in your brother or sister, who annoys the life out of you but in whom you know you could
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| it's cool when your brothers are also your confidantes |
confide. The friends you meet and get super close to in a short period of time, wondering how you fell-for-them-in-a-friend-way so quickly. The mutual friends that you don’t know that well, but still appreciate because a friend to your friend is your friend, too. And, of course, the friends you don’t talk to anymore, but still care about deeply. The friends you may have lost touch with, but yearn to reconnect with.
They are all important, and the extent of the role they play in your life ebbs back and forth as your life changes. As you change, so do your friendships - some grow, some wither, and that is all okay.
To all the friends I’ve made over the years, regardless of how close we are now, thank you for your friendship. It’s a beautiful gift, one that I cherish. And for the record, I had a great trip to Tobago. It was refreshing, relaxing, rejuvenating, and quelled my fears about adult friendships. No matter how much time had passed, it was a relief to know that I could still meet up with old friends and have a grand time. Maybe that won’t always be the case, but for now, this is what is, and for that I am grateful.
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| our last night in Tobago, at Sahara Lounge |
