The air outside is crisp and the leaves crunch beneath my feet as I sprint towards the pile my grandfather had made. My siblings run after me, crushing me as they leapt into the pile spraying leaves all over the place. From the old and rusting door, I hear my grandma call out to us, “I made hot chocolate if you want some.” My siblings and I jump up with excitement and scrambling as we rush to get inside the door.
I close my eyes as my stomach drops to my toes; years spent playing on the play fort and trampoline in my backyard. Days spent role playing with my siblings as we play dodge-ball and make up obstacle courses flash before me, the plane had taken off. I sat there wondering when am I going to see my oldest sister, Caroline again.
As I jolt awake the next morning, my first instinct was to ask her if she wanted to go thrift or get boba, but she wasn’t there. I still had my other sister Elaina for the time being, but I knew in a year she would leave too. I felt petrified at the thought.
I began spending all of my time with Elaina, all my free time was dedicated to playing cards and having a Mario Party together, so much so that I was drifting away from my closest friends, scared that I wouldn’t see my sister again, even if I knew it wasn’t true.
I missed them. Luckily, it didn’t take long before I got to see them again, both of my sisters came back for breaks or sometimes long weekends, but still, I felt distant from them and when talking to them my fuse grew short. The connection we once shared felt to be slipping through my fingertips, just out of reach. I’m still not fully sure as to why my feelings of nostalgia and memories of lost hangouts manifested in anger, but I knew it was something that needed to change.
When they were gone I was overwhelmed with feelings of frustration and dejection. Slowly I heard myself apologizing to them and working on my behavior around them. I started acting nicer towards them and being more appreciative of the things they would do or offer to do knowing they were thinking about me. I love them more than anyone else and I needed them to know that and feel secure in our relationship.
Once Elaina was gone and off to college, I came to terms with what I was doing, as the severity of my actions smacked me in the face. I owed it to myself and to my friends to make amends. It was okay for me to have more than one important relationship at a time.
However, soon I fell into the old habit and spent all my time with my girlfriend, so much so that my friends said “We were a package deal, always together”. I ate lunch with her and called and texted her all the time with little care as to how it made my friends feel. As the days passed, I was forced to reconcile with my friends and the people still present in my life. I embarked on a journey to restore what I lost, striking up new conversations, asking my friends to hang out and inviting people over. Soon we were frequently getting drinks together after school, or chilling in the theater building prepping for a show.
I noticed I was ignoring and being ignorant of the other people around me, failing to consider their thoughts and feelings or how what I was doing might hurt them. The distance between me and my friends was growing larger by the second. I had forgotten that my friendships require just as much effort to maintain. With that, I reached out to them, fighting to reconnect with them. I devised a plan to split my time up in order to maintain the relationships I had formed. I needed them in my life and I was not going to let my insolent behavior ruin what I had worked hard to obtain. It wasn’t easy but I slowly corrected my behavior, sharing my lunch with my different friends and making sure to ask them to hang out. Sleepovers, thrifting and late-night conversations soon filled the air.
On this complex adventure of relationships, I grew to understand that all the connections and bonds that I built and cared for, no matter how small, needed nurturing. It’s important to keep balance with all the people around you, ensuring that one relationship does not overshadow or determine your closeness to another.
The connections I had built with the people I had grown up with, grew fond of, and felt warm around, all required effort and dedication as life changed and people left. I needed them then and I still do now.
