In the movie Take Me Home Tonight starring That 70s Show’s Topher Grace, a group of friends attend a high school reunion party, where the protagonist later grows the courage to talk to the girl of his dreams from back in high school. Although the movie isn’t exactly a memorable one, I always remember a line from the movie. As Topher Grace and a friend are standing aside at the reunion, looking at the scene playing before them—the cliques from high school reinforced, the friend groups back to what they looked like when they roamed their school’s halls, the people who always had that certain thing about them that you could’ve sworn would change once high school finished and they’d be a little more mature—a character tells Grace “Take a look around you. Everything changes, but nothing changes.”
I’m back home for Winter Break, and it’s amazing to see how much this quote has held up. My friend group from high school is exactly the same, the stories are exactly the ones they were in high school, with the locations replaced and the details a little different. I was the only one from my high school to leave the state of Texas, and when I graduated I expected that everything would be completely different when I came back. I’m (happy? surprised? relieved?) to realize that our lives changed, but not the people living.
Of course, certain life events have happened; relationships have finished and ended, friendships were sworn off, and family structures are different. A part of leaving to college, especially when it’s a long-distance commitment, is accepting the fact that you’ll more than likely come back to a home that’s different in one way or another than when you left. But change is inevitable, and it’s a part of life. I’m thankful that my parents are both alive and healthy and that my friends are still, for the most part, as close (if not closer) to each other as we were in high school. If you’re reading this from somewhere not near Boston, and you’re scared to leave the comfort of home, don’t worry; everything changes, but nothing changes.