I couldn’t pretend to write about adulthood if I didn’t confess to a few fears I have about this whole inevitable process of leaving behind our tricycle-riding afternoons, our Nintendo days and Mario Kart marathons, our Taco salad Tuesdays and varsity jacket Fridays, our late nights of cheap brews and cheesy breadsticks – heck, our entire childhoods.
It can be scary to grow up and that’s never going to change. I fear making wrong decisions now that will stick with me for life. I fear time, because there’s never enough and it’s not on our side. And most of all, I fear losing the closeness I once had with my college friends and never getting it back – not with those same people, or with any of the new friends I’ll find as an adult.
I couldn’t pretend to write about this fast-moving phase of twenty-something life if I didn’t admit to feeling nostalgic for times past, while sometimes simultaneously wishing for some far-off feeling I haven’t yet found.
I miss my summer working for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, jamming out to the Gaslight Anthem during long walks in Frick Park and gaining an appreciation for craft beer during back-yard barbecues. I get nostalgic for my days in the dorms and those summers I spent at basketball camp and the novelty of staying up until midnight to celebrate New Year’s Eve as a kid.
Yet I’m also starting to form fantasies of a day when maybe I’ll be a decision-maker at my company. Or maybe I’ll be living in a cute little house in the western suburbs and decorating my own Rosie the Riveter bathroom and cloud photo living room. Or maybe I’ll form a close net of nearby friends and I’ll feel like a somebody again in my town or neighborhood.
For all my optimism, I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t admit I sometimes feel lonely, and I wish I could conjure up my college apartment full of roommates, or my college newsroom full of fellow reporters and editors and friends.
Friendships just aren’t the same when we’re no longer in school. Distance and career choices and misunderstandings and family decisions and time and who even knows what else subtly creep in and separate us from the connections we once felt.
The tools that help us connect can’t fill the void. The Facebooks and Twitters of the world might make us think we still know what’s going on in our friends’ lives, but we’re only getting the highlights. We’re unlikely to know the recurring characters, the quirky issues that make cameo appearances just to be quickly solved, or the one-time guest stars who have a lasting influence. We miss the humor, the frenzy, the drama – the good stuff – and all we get is the short version. That’s all we give, too, when we text our buddies or call our friends to chat.
A lot of the good stuff of friendship gets left out when there’s no time to maintain the relationship daily or weekly or at least regularly. Yet the importance of having close friends and confidantes in our lives doesn’t decrease.
It’s a problem without a solution so far, except to name it, admit it’s out there, and try to stop fearing it. But getting old can be scary, and sometimes the best comfort can be a close friend.
Twenty-something Times 