College Friends Come to Visit

    There are many things that you don't miss after you come home from your first year of college. For example, the dorms, the endless hours of studying, the microwavable meals, just to name a few. However, there are, of course, the few things that you miss so much and you almost feel as though you can't function without. First, cheesy bread, second your freedom, and third your college friends.
   College friends are a unique breed of humans. They're the first people you really choose to be friends with as an "adult." In middle school or high school, you become friends based on default. You're on the soccer team together, you are on student council together, you carpool because you live in the same neighborhood, etc.
    There are also those friends at home you've almost known since birth and they'll always be your best friends. However there is one major difference between the two types of "best friends." College friends are the only people in your life that you will spend all of your time with. I mean you wake up and get breakfast together in the morning, then hike your way to class together, then study together, than eat together, then workout together, then eat some more, then party, then sleep, all with the same group of people. This is unique in that when you're back at home, you see your family at home, your peers at work or school, and your friends when you have free time. This experience builds a unique bond and care for one another. When I left school, I realized that I became dependent on my college friends and for the best reasons. They bring me so much joy and I was lucky to have two of them visit me this past week.
    When each of them arrive it is of course as nothing has changed. The true art of a beautiful friendship is one where, no matter the time spent apart, when you reunite, you pick up exactly where you left off.

    In college it is extremely easy to make poor decisions. We all make them at one point or another, but one of my most confident decisions I've made is my choice in friends. Proverbs 18:24 says, "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." With my friends there is always someone to lift me up, to make me laugh, to renew my faith in God, and to guide me with my best interests at heart. I have been fortunate in the last week to have my best friends from forever meet my new best friends from college. Old and new have no value in the previous statement as I feel so blessed to be surrounded and supported everyday by new and old friends near and far.
It has come to my attention since college that friendship is not something that can be taken for granted and those friendships based on default alone will never last. The lasting friendships are the ones that you invest time in and they repay your soul one million fold.