WILSHERE: When it hits closing time

I’ve left London only a few days ago, yet it feels like it’s been years. My flat in South Kensington feels so far away now, the whole city unreachable. I’ve left behind coworkers and friends, professors and people I went on dates with. I wasn’t terribly sad when I left, though, knowing I’d be coming home to my family and moving up to Boston to be with my friends in a few weeks. I also knew I would be leaving with my friends, so we could all spend senior year reunited with our other friends as well. Goodbyes aren’t always that — more and more I believe in the novelty of “see you later’s.” As more exes re-emerge back into my life in very strange ways, I believe that goodbyes aren’t always meant to be the last word.

Distance can make things difficult, as I’ve learned spending a whole semester away from many of my friends and family. Although I was able to go abroad and travel with many of my close friends, I always had the feeling that I was leaving people behind, mainly those who stayed in the United States. The hardest part was dealing with the different time zones I’d be in, ranging from four hours to six hours ahead of many of the people I was talking to. When my mom got off work, sometimes it would be one in the morning when I would finally be able to call her. Time zones, on top of not being physically present can weigh down on relationships of any type — romantic, familial or platonic. Unfortunately, there are so many emojis one can send to express facial emotions, so many “I miss you’s” before one gets frustrated with the situation. Distance in any relationship can be hard, and as the school year ends, it’s something many of us will be faced with.

This is not to make a point that we’ll never see those that matter to us again, but to say that we’ve done this all before. I cried when saying goodbye to my best friends from high school, blasting Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” outside my house. I thought that college was going to be nearly impossible without my best friends right there beside me. The reality was that I would make new friends and keep in contact with the ones that I had. That’s the way the world works nowadays, thankfully. Those we want to keep close to us we can and those we need to let go of we can. We don’t have to send 365 letters, one for every day of the year, when a simple text message to say hello can suffice.

As we approach graduation, we get closer to a period of time where everyone we know moves in a different direction. After spending four months living in a foreign country, I got used to the concept of a life in transition. Like a snow globe shaken waiting for the remains to settle, nothing can ever be the way that it was. I am inches away from completely being a senior. Many of my friends will be graduating and leaving Boston, moving away to far corners of the country. As much as the future scares me, the prospect of my friends chasing theirs doesn’t. I know some of them need their space to succeed, I know others need all the love and support they can collect.

All of this boils down to advice my mom gave me when I was leaving my hometown for college. She said that I would keep in contact with those I cared about and those who cared for me in return and everyone else would fall by the wayside. Although the reality of that statement is less concrete and messiness always emerges where relationships do, the merit still stands. Those we make a clear intention of keeping in our lives will do just that, and everyone else will fall by the wayside. You might bump into them in the supermarket or find them in a foreign country where you’re spending the weekend, but how you deal with that will be up to you. Keep those who matter to you forever in your hearts, for love is marked by presence, in any form.