Last May, I graduated from college and moved out into the working world. Over the summer, I managed to keep in touch with a fair amount of the friends that I had made, mostly through e-mail. This past weekend, I went back over to visit everyone and try and catch up on old times. For the most part, everything seemed fairly normal. It was late summer and I was back at school hanging out with friends before classes started. Things changed when I had to leave, though. It was strange picking up and leaving people that I had spent 2 or 3 years really getting to know.

On the way home I began thinking about the people that I had seen and visited with over the weekend. Some of them would be graduating this year, while others had 1 or 2 years of school left. Over the course of the past week, I heard from a few of the people that I had seen, but not nearly everybody. It made sense to me that school was just starting and everyone was busy, but I did kind of expect to hear how the beginning of classes had been and whether there was anything new going on with anyone. On Friday I got an e-mail from another friend who had already been through it all. They had graduated a couple years back and has been out in the working world for awhile themselves.

Although it probably wasn't their direct intention, that one piece of mail got me thinking even more about the subject of friendships. I looked back at my past and tried to establish something that would help me figure out what was going on, and what was going to happen. Of course I wouldn't be able to exactly pinpoint what will happen, but I did come up with some distinct (and very natural) transformations that my friendships had gone through.

Without making this too lengthy, I'll try to explain myself a little better. In high-school, most people tend to have a few close friends that they spend most of their time with. There are several other people that you could most likely have a conversation with, but would never really spend a great deal of time with. If a person goes off to college (and doesn't manage to go to the same college as their friends), then they usually meet a whole new set of people. Again, most people have a few close friends that they spend a majority of time with, as well as a larger group of people that they don't know as well, but would chat with on occassion (such as people they recognize from a class or some other group). Each one of these steps usually results in a very natural process in which a person gradually loses touch with some of their friends.

I am currently finding myself at a phase like this in my friendships with the people that I met while at college. It hasn't happened to me completely yet, but I know that in the next few months, I will hear less and less from some people, while I'll manage to stay fairly close to others. I'm starting to realize that I'm at the point in my life again where I'm going to start losing some good friends, as well as hopefully gaining some new ones. It's kind of upsetting knowing that I'll probably lose touch with some people, but now that I've thought about it a bit more it's making more sense to me as something that everyone goes through. I guess all I can do is keep offering my friendship as best as possible and hope that some continue to accept it.

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