Yearbooks...

If you’re not in high school I’m going to ask you to remember something for me (if you are still in high school or have yet to enter high school you can just pretend). 

Think back to the days leading to the end of your senior year. Whatever day you got to spend signing people’s yearbooks and leaving messages about how much you were going to miss that person, well wishes for a good summer, and how “they better keep in touch with you once you go to college, dammit, because you’re like BFFs for life and they’re your favorite person in the whole wide world.”

How many people times did you write “I’ll miss you!”? How many of those people cross your mind on a daily basis? When was the last time you called them, texted them, or established contact? 

I’m by no means trying to be accusatory. I am just as guilty as everyone else, if not more. 

I’m also in no way saying you need to text your best friend from 3rd grade every day and explain your days to each other in agonizing detail. 

Life gets in the way sometimes. You go from having 4 classes a day together in high school to being separated by hundreds of miles because the job market is practically demanding a higher education (Thanks, Obama). You promise that you’ll call each other every day, and you do. For a while. And then you can’t because you have to study, or write a paper, or you just forgot. It happens. And then after a while you might move on. 

I think I’m one of the lucky few. Up until college there was an entire state between me and my best friend. Now there’s only half a state, because my college decision allowed me to move closer. So my best friend / brotha’ from anotha’ motha’ was with me for the weekend. I am fully aware that I’m one of the few who have that opportunity. 

You would think that, considering the leaps and bounds we’ve made in technology, staying in touch with people would be easier. We’d communicate with our friends across the state / country / world more often. The little rectangle that never leaves our side is a gateway to people everywhere. Yet instead of interacting with people we elect to cyber stalk them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine (well... Vine’s gone to the crapper... so not Vine, really). It’s easier, it’s quicker, and we don’t have to wait for them to respond. 

I’m not saying we’re doing anything wrong, as a society. It’s part of who we are. I really have no idea what I’m trying to say at all, if we’re being honest. And if we’re being really honest I’m writing this because I got sick of studying for the midterm I’m about to take in less than 12 hours. 

All I’m really saying is that I pass people I went to high school with almost every day while I’m walking to class, and neither of us really make the effort to acknowledge the other. 

So maybe we should put a little more thought into what we write in someone’s yearbook, ya know?