Same Girls, Different Lives

“I wish we were back in high school!”

A co-worker had recently said this to me. Now, it’s important to note that I am only

in my mid-twenties. But God, did this comment bring on some unsettling anxiety. I forced a smile and nodded, but I couldn’t bring myself to add anything more.

We always hear about stories filled with nostalgia about former years. High School, Middle School and Elementary School. And don’t get me wrong, I had some great moments. But do you want to go back in time? I don’t wish for that. When I think

about High School, I think about how different I was. 

I was a child, still learning what I liked and didn’t like. Friendships were based mostly on the fact that we spent every day together, and loosely on common interests.

There’s a reason I kept very few friends from those years. Looking back, I have

really and truly just outgrown my old life. I had outgrown most of those friendships by the time University rolled around. 

No matter how hard I tried to find the ease of childhood friendships, I just couldn’t. I was an adult. I formed my own opinions, my own ethics, my own wants and desires. What I classified as a friendship, a relationship, wasn’t the same anymore. It didn’t just matter if we spent time together. I didn’t want to only have a relationship with people who saw the best in me. I wanted to be around people who saw me at my worst and still wanted me in their lives. A friendship that didn’t need constant communication

and outings to be real and raw.

The guilt was overwhelming. When friends asked why I was so distant, I didn’t know how to explain how I felt. It seemed like no one else around me was ready to let go of their old selves. But I had new hobbies, interests, and a different plan for my life. 

I wasn’t sixteen anymore. It’s not talked about often, having to end a friendship because

you’re just not in the same parts of life anymore. I never felt so selfish, so unhappy before. In the end, it needed to happen. I realize it now. I’m happily married, I have a stable career. I’m ready to start my own family. And I have new friendships that don’t see the sixteen year old girl I used to be, but the woman I am now. They take me as I am, the good, the bad and the ugly.

So if you’re reading this, maybe feeling like you just don’t feel like the same person you used to be, it’s probably because you’re simply not. We aren’t meant to live the same way at forty five years old than we did at twelve. We should be changing and growing. 

It’s okay to outgrow people, and it’s okay to outgrow your old life.

Written by, B.Summers