“Everything always returns to the beginning.”
-Lisa See
This is a quote from one of my favorite books “The Shanghi Girls” by Lisa See. I read this book at the beginning of my junior year and I never fully understood what the quote meant.
This year I am truly finding out how everything returns to the beginning.
At the start of my freshman year, I was extremely close with a few friends. We hung out all of the time, we were all, for the most part, single and nothing was more important than each other.
Throughout these past few years in high school, we have remained close friends but things changed.
We met knew friends in classes who shared similar interests. We joined different clubs and sports. Suddenly, our weekends were no longer spent with just one another; we had new friends and more responsibilities.
The summer after my freshman year, I began a relationship with someone who was not in my original friend group from middle school, making even less time to spend with my friends I’ve known forever.
I began to grow close with his friends, making even less time for my original friends.
My friends began to enter into new relationships as well.
We all got jobs our sophomore year and made friends at work. We also began to work more and more when we got cars and had to pay for gas money, insurance, and of course the occasional ticket.
We would still hang out on the weekends, but it wasn’t like freshman year anymore. Everything had changed, not for better or worse…everything was different.
I didn’t see how things “returned to the beginning.” I was in my junior year of high school and everything had changed, but nothing had returned to how it was and I was sure it was never going to.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hung out with my friends every so often, but nowhere near the amount I had in the past. It seemed inconceivable to me that I ever would, with all my other friends, my boyfriend and new found responsibilities such as work and AP classes.
This year, my views changed entirely.
Although I still have all those responsibilities and new friends, none of it seems as important as it did last year. In the first couple years of high school, I was so concerned with making new friends and my boyfriend but not as concerned with building strong relationships with my old friends.
With graduation quick approaching and no longer being in that relationship, I realize how my best friends and I will soon be separated.
Suddenly, all of the casual school friends seem unimportant and my work friends do not matter; my priority is to build on the relationships I’ve had since kindergarten, not to make more friends.
I’m trying to see my close friends every weekend and making them my main concern these last few months, just like freshman year.
Everything has returned to how it was in the beginning, and I must say I’m loving every minute of it.