Thoughts on friends and finding a home
What friendship and life a few years out of college looks like
I’m sitting at a coffee shop in Nashville as my best friend and former college roommate works as a barista behind the bar. She introduces me to her coworkers as her old college roommate. Later, we’re going out to eat with some of our first friends we made in college. I can’t help but think about the passage of time and what life could have been.
When I first met her, I was 17. I was going to Belmont University as an entertainment industry major with high hopes of working in the music industry. Now, I’m 23 and working towards a career in journalism. I’m only visiting for four days. When I visit I run through the full itinerary: seeing as many friends as possible, going to all of my old favorite bars and visiting their new favorites, and you can’t forget the nostalgic walk around campus. Whenever I visit, I think about my life if I had stayed after graduating. If I didn’t graduate a year early. If I ended up working in the music industry and didn’t go to London for 15 months to pursue my master’s in journalism. Who would I be? What friends would I have? Would I be happier?
Sometimes, I feel envious of the lives my friends created. They get together for Easter dinner and have friendsgivings. Every couple of months, our one friend hosts a pancakes and daiquiris at his place. I’ve never been invited to a friendsgiving before or had a proper secret santa with a large group of friends. When I stay in one place for too long, I feel suffocated and anxious. I’m nervous I’m not living the five other lives I could be living. Scrolling on social media, I think about the other places I could be and other versions of myself I still have left to discover.
Since graduating college, I haven’t felt fully at peace with my life. I’ve traveled around hoping I would find the meaning of life somewhere in the abyss of the unknown. I wonder if I’ll ever feel fully content in one place. However, after a year of near isolation in London and weekends spent with random men I could care less about, I’m feeling desperate for a solid community. For friends in one place and for a house I can turn into a home.
There’s a quote by the author Miriam Adeney that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: “You will never be completely at home again because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”
After years of traveling and meeting amazing people, creating tiny communities in each area of the world I visit, I’m slowly realizing that none of my friends will ever be in the same place. That was a tough epiphany, but maybe it’s not that bad. How lucky am I to have people I love in every corner of the globe?
No one prepares you for what this side of post-grad life looks like. How it feels to know that the friends you once spent every second of every day with are somewhere across the country, continuing to make memories without you. The bittersweet emotions of confusion, anger, and sadness that come with figuring out which life path you want to follow and the fear of not knowing until years later whether you made the right choice. Maintaining friendships after graduating and traveling takes effort, but it’s worth it. I’ll never know where I may be if I had stayed after graduating. But I know that as far as I may travel, I can always come back to Nashville and be with people who embrace me wholeheartedly.
