The pressures from our friendships are seasonal

The common phrase is always, show me your friends and I will show you who you are. However, there is always a sense of disparity when it comes to friendships

I came to understand that friendships are seasonal. My mum would always wonder why I would exchange family time for an opportunity to go out with my friends. 31 December is widely known as a day when you get to ‘’cross the year’’ with the person or thing you love most. Some crossover with God, others with new year resolutions, and the rest with their most beloved friends, family, and companions.

I remember this one particular 31st when I was in Highschool and my ‘’friend of the opposite sex’’ and I had planned what we would engage ourselves in on that day. This was the opportune time that my mum suggested we travel to the upcountry (Machakos). I tried to rebel against this order, but you know our African mothers better. She attacked me with a harsh lecture on how I do not like and appreciate my home and this guilt-tripped me to join the journey. Throughout the journey, I played the old game of silent treatment until I noticed that it only made me feel worse. My friends back at home shared videos of them lighting fireworks and I viewed with envy as I responded to their content with no enthusiasm. So why was I angry?

As an adolescent, and worst of all in a school setting, small yet major pressures succumbed us to behave in given ways because we needed to adapt to a given environment.

In a school environment, rules hardly change and when they did it was purely due to an emergency. For instance, if the school’s national flag happened to fall during a parade, the school would change its school uniform as a sign of atonement for the wrong committed.

In this environment, one had to have a boyfriend, receive their monthly visitors at a given age, and belong to a given clique otherwise you would seem foreign.

The girls who had boyfriends in the school football team associated with one another, same to those who had pocket money in plenty and those who had long luscious hair. Everyone knew where they belonged. In high school, we used the table system in serving food. Each table had a total of ten students. One was never expected to switch tables or eat on another table. It was a norm that if one broke it spoke a sense of betrayal and hatred to the other members of the table. The gravity of such situations in a school controlled how each one of us behaved.

During the holidays was no different. You had to have the latest hairdo, attend the events taking place, and have a booming social media page.

This environment encouraged people to seek social status and prestige over certain personality attributes. You’ll either be praised for having a shapely body, fair hair or skin, good grades, for being the class clown, the star player, the bully, or the rebellious student.

I feel I have become more studious in university compared to my lower levels of education and this is because a lot of unnecessary distractions kept me busy at these early stages of my education. I think 10 percent was studying and 90 percent was everything else that did not involve books. People think adolescence only affects our physical development but it plays a huge role in influencing our behavior. I’m not saying that I don’t go out or keep my social life in check nowadays, I just understand better what is worthy of my time and what is not.

The friends we tried to please, the goals and personality achievements we had back then served their purpose and are now irrelevant. They are what made us assertive in our decisions or uncertain. They enabled us to discover and develop our hobbies and talents. We carry with us the memories that make us cringe and laugh our hearts out.

How ironic it is to think I would love to be home right now, but unfortunately school has my hands tied. If the past me could send a letter to the future me, I’m sure she would scold me on my thoughts of wanting to be home. But it was all for a season.

What would your adolescent self write to you today RAIRgem?