Maintaining Friendship After High School Graduation

Congratulations! You are graduating from high school. This is a happy, yet scary time for many graduates, I know. I've been there before, not only as graduate myself, but also as a mom watching two of my kids graduate from high school and leave the nest. Your life is going through so many changes and one thing you don't want or even expect to happen is your friends to change, but they do.

I don't like to be the bearer of bad news or maybe it's even good news if you don't like your friends, but as you grow some of your friends may go different ways. You are probably are already seeing that now. Some kids will go to college away from home, others will stay close, some will enlist in the military and others might get married. A few and I hope for the sake of the parents just might stay home and draw of the bank of mom and dad. One thing is certain that things really do change, but just because they are changing doesn't mean you can't remain friends.

One thing you generation Y and Z's have that those of us in generation X didn't is social networking. You have so many tools to use to stay in touch that you don't have to worry too much about connecting with your friends even if you move away. Well that's if your friends are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or whatever the next big social media site is. I find it so hard to keep up with but I do anyway. I try to keep up because like you I want to stay in touch with my friends.

Over the years I've had the opportunity to travel abroad and visit several continents. I'm very pleased to say I've collected friends from all the regions of the world. And these are real friends, the kind of friends that give a darn if they don't hear from you in a while but they are not the same as my high school friends. Although I have a special affinity for them I haven't met a friend they has or can replace the friends that I grew up with. That's why staying connected to them is so important.

High school friends knew you way back when or "back in the day" as us in Gen X call it. They knew me when I wore a Geri curl and Daisy Dukes. They were the ones that I played double dutch with. Those friends know my mama by first name and would come over to my house and drink Kool-Aide. Those friends didn't care where I lived, what college I attend or where I worked. They hung out with me just because I was a cool kid to hang out with. They knew the real me, stripped down and strung out on soap operas. When I loved Prince, they loved Michael Jackson. When I learned how to drive, they learned how to drive. Those moments are priceless. That's why high school friends are valuable.

If you want to make sure you maintain your friendships, then be about the business of the friend business. As a business woman I understand the value of relationships, especially friendships. Value friendship as you value currency or money. Separate your friends in columns; low asset, high value, high assets.

Decide which friends you value the most and place them in your high asset currency column. Those are the friends that you call regularly, update on your achievements and even failures. You also want to stay in touch with the family of those friends just in case your friend moves you can always stop over to their mom's, grandma's or cousin's house to get the new address and/or updates. As you marry, have kids and move those are the peeps who will always know what's going on with you and hopefully they'll treat you in the same regard.

The next column are for the close, but not so close friends. You care, but not so much that you would move mountains to find out what's really going on in their lives. Stay in touch with a Christmas card every year, friend them on Facebook and of course, if you're home and have time stop over and say hi. Watch this column those because sometimes these high value friends move up or down based on what's going on in your life.

The final column is for the peeps that you are cool with; they're low assets. You really don't care all that much, but you care enough to say hi and feel a tinge in your heart if something every happened to them. Connect with them on Facebook or any other social site you are on. Catch up with them if you see them in town but don't go the extra mile in trying to keep the home fires burning. If they were THAT important they'd be in the other two columns.

Friendship is a funny business, maintaining it even funnier. As you grow young and wise, you'll soon find out what you thought was important in maintaining a friendship is not that important of all. That's why it's a business. When you find that you are not getting a good return on your investment, your interest starts to dwindle, literally and figuratively. You'll find yourself investing your asset (you) into another type of currency, a new friend which might live closer, might work with you or share a common new interest you found. In the beginning it might feel funny investing in new currency but you will. The truth is even when you do, don't feel disheartened because if your high asset friends really were of value to you, you'd keep them. We always keep, protect and preserve what we value. Remember that and you'll always have and maintain good friendship with the ones that really matter.