Friendship. One word with the most meaning behind it. Friends come and they go but the ones that mean the most will last forever. With a new school year, everyone needs a new friend. Be one.

Friends are always changing, just like life. With a new school year people can be looking for friends and feeling overwhelmed by missing old friends who left or not having any friends.

Junior Emily Poling said, “I had to live my life to the fullest after my friends graduated and went to college. I miss them a lot but once I started to invest myself into the people I don’t know well and the people who I may of have not usually talked to I quickly made new friends who I got to live life with.”

I have had most of my friends graduate, and I was the baby amongst our friend group. I know the feeling of friends leaving all too well. My friends were all older than me but those people meant the absolute most to me. They were my family. As a senior, I have experienced my friends moving onto new things since my sophomore year.

“Always keep in touch with old friends. They can and might be your friends forever. Don’t feel like you’re betraying them by talking to new people and making new friends. You can never have too many friends,” said senior Jake Kahmann.

Making friends is hard. You have to go all the way out of your comfort zone to talk to what may be a stranger. I personally know the pain all too well.

My best friend recently graduated and is attending college, and I miss her like crazy! I used to live life with her everyday and now we are in two completely different stages of life. To all of those people who are missing your friends who graduated or moved away and you don’t see them as often as you used to, it will all be okay. They are still your friend! My best friend will always be my best friend it just looks a little different since we are in two different stages of life and are busy people. That doesn’t mean our friendship is any less. We will always be best friends. She’ll always be my person, but life is crazy and it changes and I have to invest myself in the people around me and love them well.

I have the opportunity to invest myself in the people who I spend six hours with five days a week and that’s pretty cool if you ask me. Making friends with students just like yourself is one of the best ways to show them they are loved in this crazy world; all different types of friends are good.

“Meeting new people is always good. I have made new friends every year so far and that’s one of my favorite parts about high school. You can make so many friends by being kind to one another. The new school year brings many opportunities and one of those being, making new friends,” said Poling.

You can never have enough friends. High school is full of opportunities and full of people to be friends with. Branch out and leap into a new friendship that is just waiting to happen.

Here’s the secret to life, everyone just wants to be loved. Go love someone and make them feel wanted. Talk to the stranger in your math class. Or the kid who looks like they’re having a bad day. Sit next to the kid at lunch and talk about anything. Just go love them. You can miss your friends who may by gone but don’t let it take away from you and the year you choose to have. I challenge you to be bold and go love the heck out of people, everybody and anybody. Be a friend. Be a pal.