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June 5, 2009 - By Charlie Shi
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For a large number of the class of 2009, graduating means a physical and emotional separation from friends, family, teachers and other acquaintances.
This separation is often inevitable despite efforts made to maintain contact and closeness. It’s no secret that we all meet new people after high school regardless of whatever school or career we choose. As we become more immersed in these new people, we adapt to them and they start to fill in the voids left by the friends we left behind. Life goes on, memories fade and the people of the past become eclipsed by people of the present.
It’s happened before and of course it’s going to happen again. That’s the scariest part of it all - the possibility that you’re going to forget and be forgotten.
However harsh that sounds, it’s a known and expected reality. All seniors go through their last year conscious of the fact that they will eventually face the impending farewells. Yet, no amount of preparedness can soften the dreaded blow.
The months and maybe years after high school might be filled with pain and longing for a life left behind. After all, goodbye is often the hardest word to say.
But wait; not all is lost. In fact, especially in this age, not everyone has to say a concrete goodbye. We have gotten to a point so technologically advanced that physical distance stands in the way of relationships less and less each year.
The Internet serves as an ever-expanding and almost inexhaustible resource for people trying to get and stay in touch. A couple of decades ago, graduates who moved away from each other had very few options for maintaining contact, mostly mail and telephone.
Nowadays we are fortunate to have a number of applications on the web devoted to the purpose of communication.
In addition to the basic, almost prehistoric practice of email there are many more specialized and advanced options that most high school students are already familiar with. Popular personalized webpage applications such as Myspace and Facebook are practical for at least providing a means of potential contact between far off people.
Once that contact is established, instant messaging and real-time applications like Skype allow a more personal level of communication.
As technology becomes more advanced and promising, interactions between friends will become more and more convenient. Soon, the separation between any two people on earth will become little more than a mouse click.
The bottom line is that there is no reason to view the end of high school as a parting. Although friendships unavoidably change over time and might never be the same as in high school, they can and sometimes do persist.
And while it is extremely hard to say goodbye, take comfort in the fact that it might not be the devastating disconnection it would have been a few decades ago, thanks to modern technology.
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