Luckily for me, I didn't follow through. I realized that some people who I had expected to forget were worth a closer look, and they realized the same about me. I gained some close friends in the moment our geographical distance increased - the moment we gained a glimpse the real world, and needed someone to help us through.
A glimpse is all it was, though. We left the sheltered protection of our homes for the slightly less sheltered protection of college. Throughout my last semester, I tried to force myself to accept that once again, many of my relationships were geographic: we were friends out of convenience, and graduating/me moving to London would separate the people I am friends with, from the people I hung out with, and I'd have to let the latter group go.
I hate this. I hate pretending something is true because I think it will make things easier to bear. Sometimes I have to do this because if you pretend something long enough, you begin to forget that it isn't real, and as Kerouac said, "the glory of children forever is that they have not begun to perceive that adult human strength depends mostly on forgetfulness."
I don't want to believe that. I don't want to pretend that I can't be friends with people because we never had the time to get to know each other at school, or because we only ever hung out and never really talked. I really believe that you do what you can with people with the time that you have with them, because no relationship lasts forever and sooner or later your time is up. It might not happen at the same time for both parties, and it may be hard to realize, but once your time has passed, it's gone. I'm just trying to be happy that I've been given this time with these lovely folks and make the best of it.
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