Saying Goodbye

Today I said goodbye to most of my best friends. It's hard parting from each other without knowing if or when we will see each other again. In high school, when I said goodbye to my friends, I knew that we would at least see each other a few more times because we shared a common home town to which we would return each summer. It's different with college friends. We are leaving now to go our own ways. We don't share a common town: we shared a common school. When that school time is gone, so is our daily contact. We still have facebook and email, but we don't have each other's actual person to lean on and hug.

My friends have meant so much to me the past three years. In high school I never had a lot of friends with whom I could actually hang. I had two really "best" friends and a few others that I would see at school. At college there was a group of us. It was actually a new experience for me to have a group of friends, and it actually took some adjusting. But I loved them all. We shared. We laughed. We cried. We joked. We played. We lived.

I'm excited to go to Russia, but I am not looking forward to going back to my high school days (metaphorically speaking of course). I don't mind going to Russia and being temporarily "friendless." Aloneness does not bother me. I've spent most of my life alone and isolated. I am just as content reading a book as hanging with a group. In addition, I am looking forward to making new friends, which while it is difficult for me, I plan on doing my best to find friends as well as to be a friend.

This blog has officially become much more sentimental than intended. I'm usually way too practical to let things affect me like this. Oh well, I guess it just goes to show the value and importance of those we love.