It’s an age-old question, how to balance your past and your present while looking toward the future.

There are so many things to adjust to when you go off to college. Your support system is gone.

Many students always had their reliable study buddies to help them when they didn’t understand the material that they were being taught.

Now that’s not there. There’s no Kylee Ponder, Jennifer Sing or Seth Drewry who we’ve known since kindergarten that we know we can go to for help.

We’re forced to go outside our own friends and find someone at our school that can fill that void because we all need help sometimes (except for maybe Seth, Kylee and Jenni).

Roommates, something that we didn’t have to worry about at home, are adjustments, too. Although some who opted to stay home have to adjust to being adults and still dealing with the same parental issues.

Having new things to deal with presents a problem for the old people that we love. Being in class, having to study and hanging out with new friends doesn’t leave much time for talking to the old ones.

We text every day like we used to but the only difference is she’s not in town anymore.

My best friend, Tiffany Musselman, recently departed for Old Dominion University. It’s hard to imagine that she won’t be around as often.

As the Class of 2008 is now learning, moving on, though necessary and exhilarating, is not always a joyous occasion.

“It’s different because I was used to seeing her every day, and it’s just a pretty big difference to being limited to talking on the phone,” senior Ben Devore says about his girlfriend Carrie Webber, who just left for James Madison University.

Many people are facing the same problems as their friends and loved ones explore different avenues after graduation in June. Some went straight to work, others to the Army, but most, like Carrie and Tiffany left for the college of their choice sometime in the past week.

For a lot of those students, it becomes a test of loyalties and friendships. Best friends end up being miles apart and still try to stay connected while finding new friends at their school.

The truth is some people won’t stay connected.

Some friends will lose touch; others won’t.

It wouldn’t be a test if some people didn’t fail.

That’s how life works out. The only thing that you can do is try and trust that if your friendship is strong enough that it can survive anything, even space.