First Semester Reflections on Friendship

by Abigail Price

Occasionally I am overwhelmed by an intense feeling of gratitude. A warm feeling swells in my chest and I am overcome with an urge to either grin or cry. Recently, I have experienced these waves of good feelings when I am spending time with my friends. 

Socially, last year was basically empty for me. I put a lot of effort into a handful of relationships in person and over FaceTime, but as these friends started to move onto their respective college campuses they stopped having time for me. By the end of the year, gripped with anxiety about finally going to college, I had convinced myself that I could live with my loneliness, that it was the way I would always feel. At the time, I preferred the certainty of my routine at home to the risk of going to campus and feeling even worse. I dreaded leaving home.

Luckily, I can say without a hint of irony or insincerity that coming to campus for the summer was the best decision I have made in a long time. Despite a rocky start of getting to know new people and feeling out of place, I truly feel that I have found a group of friends who love me, and who express that love more than any other friends I have had in the past. I can genuinely say that I love these people after knowing them only a few months.

When I was younger, in my mid-teens, I relied heavily on my friendships with boys. I felt out of place in feminine spaces, so I translated my own insecurities into disdain for female friendships. Now, my relationships have flipped. All of my closest friends are women, and they constantly show up for me in a way that I would never have thought possible of friends of mine before. I cherish the feminine environments that I find myself in. I can’t remember a time when I was happier. I hope these friendships last a long time, even after graduation.