by Miles E, Staff Writer
My high school career was full of changing inconsistencies such as my interests, relationships with classmates, teachers, and who I am as a person. However, probably the one thing that was never fully inconsistent, or that never stopped being a positive and important thing in my life was my core friend group that I’ve had since the start of middle school.
My first year as a freshman at Galileo I was worried about being separated from these friends I’d made in middle school and that I was incredibly close with because I was at a new school without most of them. This was a major concern of mine but wasn’t one that turned out to be one I needed to worry about.
As my high school years progressed I became closer, not farther from these friends to the point where a few of them even transferred to Galileo. This made us closer in a number of ways as the proximity and stability of having people you’ve already been close with for years allowed us to spend more time together and made it easier to coordinate doing something with the rest of our friends at other schools.
This closer bond and closer proximity to a few of the people I was closest with provided me with a sense of security and a consistent group of friends to rely on when I would be struggling with school, other relationships, or other things I was dealing with at the time. Oftentimes when I needed to blow off steam after a rough school day I would go talk about nothing with them for a few hours, and it would be exactly what I needed.
Being able to rely on people for the consistency of being present as well as making things enjoyable in dull moments was the most important aspect for me in the long and often dull years of high school.
One of my more lasting memories that helped me through high school and to become closer to these friends was during COVID when it was harder for us to see each other and spend time in person but we decided to start biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. This was a whole day process and didn’t happen too often because of how out of shape we were, but it was a way for us to be able to spend time together and showed the lengths we would go to in order to bring some enjoyment into our lives during the worst part of high school altogether. These bike rides were the memory I associate most with this time, and when I think of getting closer with my friends.
When I reflect on high school in the future, almost all of my reminiscing thoughts will be on the time I spent with my friends in these four years. Whether it will be our times sitting and eating against a musty motel wall during every lunch, our times wandering the city after school looking for good food, or watching soccer at someones home, my time in high school with my friends will be what sticks out in the whole experience.
The feeling of having a group of friends like this where everyone knows everything about each other and there is an unspoken rule of trust, is one that is hard to come by and isn’t one I think is possible to find again, and made me lucky that I got to experience having people around me like that in the trying time that is High School.
