Make An Effort: 5 Things I Learned About Keeping Friendships After College

About a year ago, halfway through my senior year, one of my friends who had just graduated said, “Maintaining friendships in post grad life is hard, but it’s all about making an effort.”

I believed this at the time but I was still in denial that I wouldn’t be as close to my best friends as I was in college. How could everything change so quickly? Would all of the effort we had put into these friendships these past four years just go to waste?

I knew I wouldn’t be able to call up my friend from down the hall and ask her if she wanted to grab late night food or my other friend if she wanted to go to spin class in 10 minutes. I knew that I wouldn’t casually run into people I knew at the on campus dining hall or at a party in the Mods.

I am an extroverted introvert. I get my energy from hanging out with friends, but I thrive when I have the balance of being alone while also spending time with some of my favorite people. College obviously had its ups and downs but I never felt completely alone.

In post-grad, sometimes I am actually alone.

Post-grad is hard. Keeping in touch is hard. But I'm learning that the most you can do is make an effort.

Here are some things I’ve learned about post-grad friendships in the 10 months since I graduated from college:

1. Think before you snap.

In today’s society, everyone is snapping pictures of their food, posting vacation pictures on Insta, and tagging each other in memes on Facebook, but is this really the best way to maintain long-distance friendships? Aside from my best friends, I know where my friends are working, living, and if they’re happy, but for some people that’s all I know about them now (when I used to get quick 30 second updates after running into them on campus).

I’m guilty of tagging my long distance best friends in memes on Facebook as a way to quickly say, "This reminded me of you." However, maybe it would be better to limit unnecessary-but-important-meme-tagging and shoot them a text instead.

This is challenging for some friendships that didn’t involve a lot of texting outside of hanging out in person, because it requires a whole new set of strategies in order to make the friendship last.

2. Put pen to the paper.

One of my best friends from college moved 700 miles away after graduation.

A few months after graduation, she wrote me a note just catching me up on her life (like she would have over dinner in person).

I must have crossed her mind one day and she wrote me a letter. I wrote back and we’ve been writing back and forth semi-frequently ever since. These letters force us to reflect and write with intention. They require a lot of effort but it’s worth it if the person on the other side of the paper is worth writing for. It’s a way to be there without actually being there. It requires you to think through what you’re going to say before the pen hits the paper.

3. Always respond to that text message.

Sometimes I get a text message when I’m in the middle of a meeting, in the middle of my commute, or getting ready for work, or out with a friend or somewhere else. I forget to respond. A friend might have asked, “Are you free to chat on the phone right now?” She might have needed me. And I wasn’t there because I was in the middle of something and told myself I would get back to her later.

Friends need each other more than ever in this post-grad life. So it’s important to respond as soon as possible.

4. Remember that your close friends are always there even if they aren’t HERE.

Flashback to 2007, when the definition of "making it" was merely determined by whether or not you had a full keyboard (and not by an-iPhone-that-takes-pictures-that-get-over-100-likes).

Therefore, it was harder to keep in touch. We would hang out during recess and school, but aside from the times that our parents would coordinate play dates with our friends, there was limited communication outside of school.

My childhood best friend transferred to a Catholic middle school when we were in 7th grade. I was scared because I wasn’t going to have my best friend by my side during my middle school years. I wasn’t going to be able to see her as often and because that was what kept our friendship going, I was scared.

After elementary school, we were never as close, but when we did see each other we would talk for hours. We were hopeful that the friendship would last even if we didn’t have the means to talk to each other every day.

We went to the same high school, but then went to different colleges. We kept in touch and we’re currently roommates, trying to conquer this post-grad lifestyle together.

5. Plan reunions.

After graduation, friends are all over the world, so it gets harder and harder to stay in touch. So write back, respond to that text, answer that Facetime call even if you’re exhausted, and most importantly, plan reunions. Make that effort and everything else will happen the way it’s supposed to.

It’s natural to lose touch with people, because both sides of the friendship have to make the effort in order for the friendship to last. It’s easy to forget about people you used to love in college if neither of you make the effort to keep in touch. Forgetting and moving on is easy. Making a valiant effort is difficult, but more fulfilling.

Make the effort, cherish the times you have together, and never forget about your loved ones.

[Photo by Nick Brier.]

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The End of An Era: Saying Goodbye to Windrose

Hi friends,

Announcement (sounds so formal, doesn’t it?):

It's the end of an era.

I’ve decided that, after nearly 8 years of telling stories of navigating life, this season of Windrose is drawing to a close.

Even Here: Words for When You're Wandering

When I was 22 years old, I visited the desert for the first time.

A metaphorical desert, if we’re getting technical.

I was fresh out of college, starry-eyed and eager to begin my post-grad life. I had big ‘ole me-centered dreams: a shiny, brag-worthy PR job in the music industry! An apartment with an exposed brick wall that (somehow) would fit an upright piano! A committed relationship with a kind, goofy man!

I got exactly none of those things.

To summarize an entire year’s worth of emotion: I was devastated.

When Life Feels Small

I hit a car in a parking garage once.

Nothing bad, really, just a ding in the door from a turn cut just a little too tight.

Truthfully, my car suffered the brunt of the bunt. But the other car was a nice one. I don’t remember the make or model—I’m not really a car person—but I do remember it was a convertible. Someone dropped a lotta dollars on this depreciating piece of metal, and I had just chipped paint off the gleaming door. Big yikes.

All because I was in a rush to get to my doctor’s appointment.

Practicing (and Failing at) Grace on the Road

Last week, I got stuck in a traffic jam on the interstate.

I was in a line of cars needing to merge into the bedlam of backed-up vehicles. We had an organized system in place, me and the cars in front of me: a car merged, then the car behind that car merged, and so on. I made my way into a gap between two 18-wheelers, neatly following the rules like the good girl I am.

But then—l'horreur!—what did the cars behind me do? Speed down the on-ramp in an effort to get ahead by usurping the follow-the-leader system of merging we had all tacitly agreed upon.

Teacher, they’re cutting!

I was… not happy.

Anne Lamott writes, “Sometimes the movement of grace looks like letting other people go first.”

That’s nice.

Here’s what I did instead.

Developing Community: Moving Towards a Space of Vulnerability, Intentionality, and Diversity

My parents moved me in and helped me explore this new city for a few days, but eventually this new place had to become my own. I tried out the coffeeshops (which didn’t compare to the ones back home) and became acquainted with people at my seminary. I found interest in what I was learning and “plugged in” wherever I could.

Quickly, however, I began to realize a need in myself for deeper community. I longed to be around people with similar mindsets. Mindsets that didn’t just recognize but acted on vulnerability, intentionality, and diversity. These types of mindsets had been prevalent in the community I was around at my undergrad, so I was puzzled as to why I was overlooking them here.

No Man Is An Island: An Ode to Our Neediness

The last few years of my life—so basically my Full Grown Adult Years—have been a reinforced lesson in this one simple yet slightly-jarring fact: we need each other. I mean, need-NEED each other.

“No man is an island,” says Thomas Merton, and my bae C.S. Lewis backs this up further by writing, “We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.”

We’re meant to be needy, but why is it so hard to acknowledge and accept this?

Say What You Need

Now maybe it wasn’t your family or your upbringing that made you neglect voicing your needs. Maybe it was a toxic relationship or a difficult work environment. Maybe it was someone who told you that your needs were selfish or that the desires of your heart didn’t matter.

Whatever it was, I urge you to identify those people or experiences or situations and start using that knowledge to change.

New Things, Better Things (A Reprise): Words for When You're Stuck in the Past

But while I’ve tried to convince myself that I am looking forward, staring straight at the wide open interstate ahead, I spent so many months still sneaking peeks into the rearview mirror every few seconds, not quite accepting that the road behind me is, in fact, behind me.

But this story isn’t the whole of my story, only a minor plotline amongst the greater. Even so, ignoring it won’t erase it like the stroke of the delete key. It may be a minor plotline, but it is a plotline woven tight around the greater story of my life for several years now.

I can’t ignore it.

A Beginner's Guide to the Enneagram

Maybe you, like me, have become curious about the Enneagram because it is popping up everywhere in conversations and on your social media timeline. Maybe you know everything there is to know and have become quite fluent in Ennea-lingo (you even know that there are sub-types!).

Maybe this is the first time you’re ever hearing about this weird test and you’ve spent the last four paragraphs trying to figure out how to even pronounce the word “Enneagram” (In-ee-a-gram, for the record).

No matter where you’re at, we can all use some guidelines when it comes to personality tests, because none of us are immune to over-identifying, self-shaming, and becoming a walking personality-test-fulfilling prophesy. So, without further ado, here are my dos and don’ts of Enneagram-ing.

The Battle to Overcome Your Rejection

Rejection is an issue I’ve had to wrestle hard with over the last three years. Every time Rejection and I had to face off in the boxing arena, I would always end up slammed and pinned down. In boxing, you have ten seconds to get yourself up before the game is over. For me, it took months before I could even peel my head off the floor.

How to Respond to Someone Else's Grief

But this post isn't about my own grief. It's not about the tears I've cried, or the questions I've asked. It’s not about my own days where getting out of bed felt too hard.

It's about a different side of the fight. It's about your mom's grief when she loses her college roommate. And your best friend after she has a miscarriage. It’s about all the people you encounter, telling you about their grief.

So Lonely I Could Die: What I Have Learned About Loneliness

The night it happens I’m alone. Afternoon slides into darkness, a day gone without notice. I put on a rom-com. I paint my nails. I wait.

I’m jonesing for junk food, so I walk up over the hill and get fries and a shake at the Park Street McDonald’s. On my way home through the Common, it starts to pour. My sandals take on water like a sponge. I squelch up to the third floor and towel off. The fries are cold and the milkshake is cloyingly sweet. I regret ever wanting them. I am still alone.

Relationships, Life, GraduationAllie OlivieriApril 5, 2018FeaturedComment