Not Inseparable, But When Separate Nothing Changes
True friends are hard to come by and friends who last a lifetime are even rarer. Some of the best friendships are the ones where you don’t need to see each other everyday, but when you do see each other it feels like you pick right back up where you left off. Since going to college, I’ve realized how much I value my friendships and how much they continue to play a role in my life in motivating and inspiring me, so I felt like my blog was an important place to highlight the value in these relationships. One of my earliest best friends from childhood, who I still talk to today, is Anna. We met through the Super Skippers and clicked almost instantly, it felt like I had found myself in a slightly different font. We quickly became inseparable and eventually would get put in competition events together because of how well we got along.
Unfortunately for me, Anna eventually quit jumping to focus on running and we started seeing each other less and less because we didn’t live super close to each other. It turned out to be a very smart move on her part to focus on running, she did very well and now runs at William Peace University. The good news is that even though we saw each other less, it really didn’t feel like anything had changed when we did get to see each other. Sure, there would always be updates on what had happened in our lives since the last time we had been together, but overall things felt exactly the same when we were around each other. It was good to know that she wasn’t just a friend by proximity, and that we both wanted to put in effort to remain in each other’s lives in whatever capacity we could.
Anna has always been one of my biggest supporters, and when we were younger we would talk about what we wanted to do when we were older. We imagined going to the same college, how fun that could be, and how we could even be roommates and see each other every day. It’s funny to think back on it now, and see how different our lives are from what we thought they would be as middle schoolers. Despite how different things are from what we expected, we’re still there for each other and supporting each other just like when we were younger. Even though now we see each other less frequently than ever, I know we will always be there for each other and that’s always been a reassuring feeling for me. Going into 2022 it had officially been around a year and a half since we had last gotten together, probably the longest we had ever gone without seeing each other.
Thankfully, last week that changed. She came to visit me on campus at UNC, and I got to take her to some of my favorite places on Franklin Street. This was our first time hanging out since we had both turned 21, so I knew we had to go to Sup Dogs. She had her first Sup Crush, and she proceeded to make fun of me for how much longer I took to finish my drink than she did. Then we went to Linda’s, and if we hadn’t been so full from Sup Dogs I would have made sure we got loaded tots, but we can save that for the next time she visits. We definitely had more to update each other on than we had in the past, but in such a crazy time it was nice to see her and it felt like a return to simpler times. When we get together we often talk about old memories from when we were both on Super Skippers and some of the cringey things we did, and how we are thankful we’ve grown a lot since then, and we always leave on the note that even though we know it might be a while before we see each other again it won’t be the last time.
This time our goal was to not take another year and a half to see each other, and even if it does take that long or longer I know it’ll still be like nothing has changed whenever I get to see her next.
