New Friends

Happy February! This year is already flying by and I can’t believe winter is ending soon. Winter in Florida has been amazing compared to the long-drawn-out winters I’m used to. My winter has consisted of walks on the beach and lots of bike rides. No complaints here!

One aspect of my gap year that I truly feared prior to starting last fall was the distance between my friends and me. I have never spent a year not seeing my friends every day or at least being forced to be with people my age. This year has consisted of a lot of alone time and I have truly grown an appreciation for this time, however, when Gracie started working with me I was more than happy. Gracie came home from college and continued the second semester of her sophomore year online. She started working to fill her time as she was also far away from her friends and from a majority of people her age. Immediately we became friends and worked really well together. I can proudly say she is one of my best friends and plan to continue our friendship for a long time. We work together, work out together, and go to the beach together. At work we are nearly inseparable, and when we aren’t working we will still find a time to hang out. Gracie is one of the kindest and uplifting friends I have ever had and she has truly positively impacted my gap year experience. I find this new friendship to be another reason I will always highly encourage an incoming freshman to consider taking a gap year, solely because of the amazing friendships you could make along the way! Gracies’ entrance into my life was almost magical. At the time I was struggling at the time with the lack of time I was able to spend with my friends in the past year. I was feeling very isolated and experiencing fear that I was missing out on experiences with my friends. I am very fortunate to of had Gracie come to me, if she never started working with us then I don’t know if anything would have changed, or how I would feel today. I have met many people throughout my gap year so far and I am so glad I was able to cross paths with them all.