Everyone has a 21st birthday, which means that everyone's best friend must also have their 21st birthday. While we close in on yours, I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am for you.

College can be rough, it can be draining and confusing. It's life-changing at best. It's life changing at its worst too. College can be rough, but it's much easier to go through it with a group of friends surrounding you. As a freshman, I hoped that I would make friends, and I acted as if I was sure that I would make friends.

Actually making friends with you confirmed my suspicions that college friendship would be a completely different ballgame. Our parents weren't anywhere near us to tell us what time we should be home or what we should be eating. In the beginning, there were a lot of late night TV sessions in our dorms and dining hall pizza binges.

Eventually, we started eating our vegetables on our own and hosting game nights, but that's not to say we don't still enjoy the occasional day-long watch party of "Survivor" or cold Little Caesars pizza now that we're in apartments.

There's no one that I would have rather grown with, from the first-semester freshman who didn't know how to get to class to upperclassmen trying to get the motivation to actually go to class.

Thank you for being beside me as we tried out clubs we didn't like, and some that we loved. Thank you for being my gym buddy, although our trips are rarer than we like to admit. Thank you for being my editor. Thank you for being my support system. Thank you for being my shoulder to cry on.

Thanks for letting me talk your ear off, for hours and hours and hours. Thanks for not always being on my side, because sometimes I'm wrong. Thanks for being my study partner, even if sometimes we did more laughing than studying. Thanks for letting me be all of these things to you too.

As far as 21st birthdays go, they're all about going out and celebrating that you can legally drink. And we'll do that together because it's part of college, but on your 21st birthday, I want to thank you for being there every day other than this one. I can't wait to celebrate with you, but more than that, I can't wait to wake up the next morning, eat breakfast, and laugh about it.