Diamonds and Stones

Hey all!
So the last time I posted was around Christmas time, so here’s my new post of 2012! I am now back at Colby College doing something we call “JanPlan” which is where you take one class for a month. It has been an absolutely fantastic couple of weeks because I love my course and my state, Maine, has finally got some snow!!! Hello skiing, sledding, and skating! I am very happy with life right now. =] However, I decided I might do a little rant about something I’ve noticed in this term. JanPlan is well known for being the party month, the restful month, and the month to make as many friends as possible, as well as work on those relationships you may have neglected in the stress of first semester. I have been eating meals and spending time with old and new friends, and I’m having an absolute blast doing it! The drawback, however, is when I step back and wonder what will happen when I stop having as much free time as I do now. It seems inevitable that some of my newly made friendships are going to suffer, and it’s up to me to determine which ones are worth holding on to. I certainly will keep in touch with most people that I have met, having lunch with them from time to time, and perhaps even sitting with them in class, but I feel pressured to devote my time to a dozen or so meaningful relationships than spread myself thin over 50 surface friends. I absolutely love meeting new people, but I don’t want to be the girl that sacrifices her true friendships in the process of boosting my number of Facebook friends. I found a quote online that warns us not to lose our diamonds while we’re looking for stones which makes me worry that maybe I have been sacrificing too much by fluttering around. I spend most of my spare time trying to memorize names or adding new numbers in my phone instead of hanging out and keeping in touch with some of my greatest friends. I’m not talking about just college. All of my life I have enjoyed just putting myself out there, but sometimes I think I let some real treasures escape in the process. I’ll never know how many. The real friends I value from my past are those that stayed with me, and I realize that several of them felt my cold shoulder every now and then while I was too busy making new friends to spend time with them. I’d like to think it’s something about me that I can’t help, but the truth is that we’re all social butterflies. We all love to jump around from friend to friend, meeting new people, and having new conversations; but we can't forget the true gems that we have waiting for us. The whole quote says, "Never take someone for granted. Hold every person close to your heart because you might wake up one day and realize that you've lost a diamond while you were too busy collecting stones." And for me? Some of the diamonds I’ve found are worth all of the stones in the world, and I pray to God that I never lose them.