The Past Year

When I woke up this morning, it finally hit me that everyone went home. It's so weird. This entire year, I've been so used to everyone being in Peoria and having the security that some of my closest friends were only a 15-20 minute drive away. But not anymore. They're all either one to five hours away now. It's so funny to think of that first week of college when all of us were trying to scramble and make new friends quickly so we wouldn't feel awkward and scared alone. It's amazing to think that I've grown so deeply connected to some of these people in such a short amount of time. I'm truly going to miss them this summer and hopefully we'll be able to pick up right where we left off next fall. And on the other end of the spectrum, all of the Morton kids are slowly filtering back and I'm getting used to the fact that some of my closest friends from growing up are back in town for the summer. But they have changed...like I have. We've slowly grown apart, lost touch, made new friends, experienced different things, etc. And somewhere in the middle are those who I've grown up with but are staying at college for the summer. I guess I just need to find that happy little medium. But it's weird. Not weird. The word "weird" brings about a negative connotation. It's different. I never thought "growing up" would be like this. I mean, you always hear about friendships changing when you go away to college and all that jazz but I never ever thought it would happen to me. But it is/did.