We did it.

We made it through four years of high school and countless years of childhood before that. You guys; you two, or six, or three, or ten, depending on the year, my best friends, got me through the last two decades. You were there for every birthday slumber party, even that time when I wet the bed when I was way too old to do so, or cried for no reason, or got mad at you because I thought you liked our other best friend more than me.

You were there when we went to Steak 'n Shake at 2 a.m. because there was nothing else to do in our "big city," but we wanted to stay out later than we always did.

You helped me lie to my parents about going bowling when we were really going to our friend's big party. And you were there when we got caught and tried again a few weeks later.

You were there when we were holed up in one of our rooms, drinking drinks we weren't even old enough to have, and held each others' hair while we learned the same lesson over and over again.

And then, somewhere in those crazy nights locked in our rooms, laughing and telling secrets and complaining about boys and girls and our parents and how unfair our first world, middle-upper class life is--somewhere in that time--we grew up.

We got older and learned when to pick our battles, and our complaining became not about our parents, but about how hard getting a job is, how we are scared that we will never get married, and how big and real the world seems to be.

Well, we still complained about our parents.

But still, very slowly, and yet all at once, we grew up. No more pretending and acting as old as our fake IDs say we are. While we were so busy worrying about getting carded, or the next big exam, or how cute that boy on the beach was, we became real life adults who legitimately have to take on a future. The time of "you have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do with your life" came crashing down around us too soon, and yes, we do still have time make a final decision, but we certainly ran out of time to start figuring it out.

So I want to say thank you to you, my best friends from high school. Because you guys are the reason that I am ready for this. I should have said something to all of you last year, before we left for college for the first time. But at that point, I was not ready to thank you; I barely even comprehended what was going on. I was just excited to get away from home and have crazy experiences greater than a milkshake and fries at 2 a.m.

My first year of college was amazing. I stayed up way past two and knew exactly how to hold someone's hair. I knew what values I wanted in friends and when a fight was not worth the end of a friendship. I knew when to not gossip and when to not let a boy distract me from what really mattered. And I did not even know I knew those things until I came back to you all again. I did not come back to some people, hated some people, and realized how dearly I missed some people.

You guys taught me and made me the person I am so proud to say I am today. I love my college friends as well, but they weren't there when I cried the first time I got an F, or when my "boy next door" got a girlfriend and I couldn't get out of bed for a week. I am thanking you for your friendship and your loyalty, but I want to thank all my friends for that. To you, I want to thank for showing me what it means to have a friend who needs no explanations. A friend who knows what you are going to do before you do it because they have seen it 100 times before, who knows when I am going to react to something that no reasonable person should get upset over, and who I can say I will never, ever let go of, because now, that has been tested.

And I really mean that--that I will never let go of you, even if college proves too long a distance and we never reconnect, or only hung out once all summer, or you work at sleep-away camp and weren't home when I was. Because from every one of you, from the girl who I realized I only had school in common with, to the boy who it turns out I only had my boyfriend in common with, to even the best friend who stole the boy next door and broke my heart, I learned something. Yes, I may never forgive the last one, but I still thank you, because even from that, I learned about love, friendship, life, and what it means to mean something to someone.

So to all my friends from high school, from the one I Skype every week to the one I almost never see anymore because college is just so hard to tear yourself away from, I want to thank you. And I want to tell you how much you mean to me, and how much you will always mean to me. Because there will always be more to learn. There will always be one more all-nighter sleepover, one more stupid fight, one more laugh. It may be the end of an era, but it sure was one hell of a ride. It will never really be over. We will never really be over. I promise.