After this summer, I was left questioning where some of my greatest friendships were going. You see, after my senior year of high school, I was very curious to see if my friends that I had grown so close to in high school would stay close. We seemed inseparable in high school, and despite the great excitement I felt for college, I couldn't help but feel as though I was leaving something else behind.
Much to my enjoyment, things didn't seem to change much after we all got in college. After the first couple of years of school, we seemed to remain close, and while our relationships were necessarily different because of our experiences away at school, we were all still able to come back home and build upon what we had always had.
However, after this past summer, I couldn't help but feel as though we were beginning to grow apart. Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. And from what I could tell, most of it was healthy and natural. Many of us, including myself, were away with internships, summer jobs, and amazing opportunities for our futures. But being myself, I was slightly saddened by the fact that it was happening. Once the greatest of friends, we seemed to be drifting away.
As I came home for Thanksgiving break, I wondered to myself whether we would be together again. Not surprisingly, the night after we all arrived home, the mass invitation was sent out. I wondered how many of my friends would attend and whether things would be different, especially having not seen each other for nearly the entire summer.
Things were good. It's actually amazing for me to see how each of our lives are headed along different paths. Though we've experienced drastically different circumstances over the past few years, we are still able to come together and celebrate the relationships we began building so long ago. Sure, we're all different from the people we were in high school, but we've been able to embrace who we've become.
It did me a lot of good to be able to see our interactions after our time apart--to see how they've changed and how they've stayed the same. Whether a priest or a faithful lay person, I will inevitably be led to friendships with different people in different places in different periods of time in my life. I need to foster friendships with a healthy realization that friends do grow apart. However, I will always be a firm believer that our human relationships are a way to experience Christ in our earthly life. And as such, I look forward to every opportunity to invest myself in someone else's life. I look forward to every opportunity to catch up with an 'old' friend, to share an experience with another, and to build new relationships everywhere I go.
As graduation grows ever closer, I find myself thinking a lot about these things. Where will I be in a few years? Will I remain close with all of the people I know and love in college? If not, will I be presented with the opportunities to keep in touch? I find it very difficult to think that I may never see--or worse, speak to-=some of my greatest friends after I graduate. Nevertheless, I have full faith that God will provide for me. I must constantly remind myself that the friendships with which He has blessed me have greater purpose, and ultimately, I must carry with me the things that I have learned no matter where I go.
No comments:
Post a Comment