We Need To Care About Each Other A Little Bit More

We forget how important people are.

We fall into the constructs of college and life to create fleeting relationships time and time again. ‘Friend’ becomes a loose term describing anyone you may have met just twice. “I have a friend who does this and that”, “I have a friend who is so and so.” These relationships are confined to the circles they’re created in: your sorority, your writing class, your dorm building planning committee. You’re “friends” because you exist in the same circles. It’s convenient, and you have some similar interests you can share conversations about.

But take a step back, and wonder now: are you really friends? Do you call them up when something exciting happens in your life? Do you know what they want in life? Do you talk about their parents and the house they grew up in? Are you sure they’ll have your back in a fistfight? Will you have theirs?

We need to care so much more about the relationships we create. We need to actually build them: foster them, invest in them, and build upon them.

People are important because the people in our lives are supposed to inspire us, help us, care about us, and push us to places we could not have gone on our own.

Graduation is in exactly five weeks and it’s about time I realized this. I used to be apathetic about a lot of things, namely my relationships. I expected them to grow just by being, but nothing happens just by being. Things happen when you make them happen. I never thought about the effort I needed to put into caring about friendships, and for that I am sorry. I’m sorry for the time I lost with potential friends, I’m sorry I didn’t put enough effort into going beyond first impressions, I’m sorry I judged and didn’t give second chances, I’m sorry I didn’t start the conversations, I’m sorry I didn’t ask the questions, I’m just sorry I didn’t care.

There are 35 days left until college is over. I can’t waste my time regretting, because it’s not like I can go back and change anything. So now I’m just promising to care.

Friends, new and old, you know who you are: let’s care about each other, because before we know it we’ll be thrown into a vast, empty landscape where there are no circles or contexts except you, me and the relationship we created.