5 Year Plan

Sophomore year of college I came up with the 5-Year-Plan. I had believed in this theory since high school, but never gave it a proper name. I actually never really came up with the name, my friends from Westmont dubbed it so since it nicely fit the concept.

The 5-Year-Plan is a theory on friendships or loss of friendships. It states that when you are in an institution for so many years, in our case, in college or in high school, you will know someone or those people for that many years that you are in the institution, four years, plus one more year after. Thus, knowing them for five years and the years thereafter become just good ol’ memories.

For the most part friends are circumstantial. We meet school, work, church… We become friends with people because we have commonalities. We become friends because we share certain hobbies and experiences found in the same system. The system essentially holds us together, but after that all ends, like college, our lives begin to change and we move on. And sometimes those commonalities are not strong enough to keep us together twenty years later. After the year we leave the system, months that soon turn into years that we lose contact. We may try to reconnect, try to remember that we were once friends and try to sustain the relationship on a few emails and phone calls. It works because we make it work, knowing that it was worth it then and should be worth something now. But sometimes, we do have to face that we have changed and it is ok to not be apart of each other’s lives. It is sad, but the truth all the same. I tried not to think so down about friendships, but it was easier this way.

The 5-Year-Plan began in high school when close older friends started to leave for college and we lost contact. I had assumed that friendships did not last since the people that were leaving were moving on to bigger and better lives, while I was stuck in their past. But when it became a reality, the first one was sad, then I got used to it, and then it became ingrained that this was how it was supposed to work. It was ok, I understood, and eventually I was able to disassociate my feelings from what I would believe would be long time friendships (however sad and fatalistic). I started expecting this from any friend because as our lives were going to keep on changing from here on out. Out of high school and into college we meet different people, become different people. After college we start lives away from each other, make new friends because we now have jobs that becomes the structure of our friendships.

Throughout the rest of college, I stopped talking about the 5-Year-Plan, but I covertly stuck to my theory. So as much as that remains true, there is also its counterpoint, in which I have discovered disproves my theory: I still have friends after this +1 year graduating from college. I did not think all was lost, but when I think about my friends in college, we are all over the place! Can distance keep friendships together? Are we allowed to think that they can? To not have faith in friendships makes it easier if things do not work out, hence why I secretly keep No Expectations 200_ in tact. It is less painful that way. But yes, having faith in relationships does feel a lot better, a lot more comforting, and of course, a lot more fun! I have talked to a lot of friends since I have been here in Paris, which has been such a blessing and a comfort to my sanity being in this city alone. It has solidified my optimism for friendships and that not all are doomed to the pits. I do believe in life long friends and cannot wait for more of those years to come — many which are bound by books, television shows, the outdoors, travel, boys, lemonade, and the funnies. I am looking forward and will still be glad having you around when I am a crippling forty year old cougar.

So thank you to Westmont for proving me wrong.

And all my high school friends and friends in the non-school category may be thinking, what about me?! oh yes, I have not forgotten about you, and you are right, you too, disprove the 5-Year-Plan, but I truly believed that our friendships would have dissipated long before! (quite the optimist), but look where we are now! And almost five years or more after high school? Damn, that’s good. And I even appreciate you more today, especially after all the years of being apart and meeting back up every year. Pretty cool. Thanks for sticking it out this long. See you at home!

So until next year, if we make it that long 🙂 thanks for being friends.