For those of us who don't have older siblings, it can be pretty tough to navigate the rough waters of young adulthood without having someone's footsteps to follow in. Fortunately for me, I found older sister figures in some of my closest friends. I don't know what I would have done in high school and my first year of college without the girls who took me under their wing.

Dear best-friend-turned-older-sister,

Thank you for protecting me. Whether it's watching out for me at a party, fixing my make-up, sticking up for me even when I'm wrong, or responding to my every text in record time, I know you will always have my back. Despite my nosiness and reassurances that you can also talk to me, I know there have been many times that you kept quiet about your own very real struggles for fear of stressing me out. Of course, as we get older and closer, our age gap seems a little smaller and we come to each other with just about everything, something I'm grateful for. It's an amazing feeling for me to know that you trust me enough to ask for advice despite how much younger and less experienced I am.

Thank you for teaching me. You have taught me how to be caring, compassionate, and a good friend. You always tell me the whole truth even when I don't want to hear it, something that a lot of friends are too scared to do. You have revealed just about every mistake you've ever made to me, no matter how embarrassing it is, just to make sure that I can learn from your experiences. Your advice and hindsight has saved me from so many difficult situations and helped me get through the tough times better than you did when you were my age. Instead of having to go through the trickiest moments in life on my own, something I've often worried about having to do, I always have someone trustworthy to go to with even my tiniest problems. Most importantly, you taught me how to properly choose and apply highlighter.

Thank you for making me always feel at home. You are the older sister I've never had and always wanted, but with an even better twist - we actually do almost everything together, and we rarely, if ever, fight. You introduced me to your friends and treated me like an equal rather than an annoying little sister. You sat with me when I cried over break ups and boys and told me that everything would be OK, because you went through the exact same situation and look how amazing you turned out. You gave me the best hugs and bought me ice-cream and pizza, all the while refusing to let me spend a dime on you. You drove me around when I didn't even have a learner's permit, walked me through my college applications, and even did my makeup for senior prom. You were there to look after me at not only my first college party, but also every single one after that. You were, and still are, my plug, something that me and my other friends cherish you for endlessly.

Thank you for setting the most amazing example of what a big sister and best friend should be. You've impacted my life in such a significant way and I can only hope that I'll eventually do the same for somebody else, like maybe my future little. Either way, most of the advice I give my younger friends is based on what I've learned from you. They say that best friends are just sisters that fate forgot to give you, but in our case, I think the universe must have predicted the chaos that would result from us actually being related, so it made us the next best thing.