Think about the friends you've made in college.

You lived with them. You've gown with them. And they grew up with you too.

And this is how the story begins:

A few years ago, my parents dropped me off in a dorm room, at some university. I was a clueless teenager that didn’t know how to handle life. (Actually as of today, I still don’t know how to handle life, I just pretend like I do.) I felt every single emotion and feeling in the book. Alongside of feeling happy and free, I also felt lonely. I had no friends. That’s when I realized it was time to break out of my shell.

So, when I moved away to college, I had no choice but to make some friends and develop friendships. I joined a fraternity and made better friends. (I may not come around as much brothers, trying to figure out what to do with my life is stressful, but I always have your back) Rushing a fraternity/ sorority may not be your cup of tea, but you can meet friends from any organization. A party. The dorms. Classes. The library. Anywhere. You develop friends within your major. You develop friends at work. Before you know it, you have friends and friend groups from all over the place. I noticed, in high school I had friends, but then we moved away. Some stayed behind. They didn’t change much. Some others left, and I haven’t talked to them in years. However, in college make friends that you share a special bond with, the bond is pretty much forever. What is that bond? Well, at one point, we were all that person that was dropped off by our parents at the dorms feelings the exact same emotions and feelings I felt as a freshman. I guess you can say, this is where the magical college fairytale of friendships truly begins.

At the beginning of freshman year, you met people from all over the place that you click with. To be honest, you realize that you meet interesting people throughout your entire college career. Now back to the freshman days, we all had no clue what we were doing and how to do it. So we used each other to figure things out. Basic things, like grocery shopping (for dorm food), cleaning and laundry. It was kind of like the do’s and don’ts of life, you know the lessons mom and dad used to try to teach us, that we never paid attention to. We stayed up late. Super late, whether it was going to the library or a party. We learned about the college lifestyles and traditions, like eating brunch at 2 p.m. or eating out at 4 a.m. after a long night. Actually, you eat with your friends 90 percent of the time no matter what time of the day it was. They don’t call it a freshman 15 for nothin’. You learn that game day is quite possibly the best day, ever and is treated like a holiday. You learn the importance of studying and that all-nighters' can be fun with your friends. You may even learn to be a reckless rule breaker, and that’s okay, most of us go through that stage. You learn to stop caring what people think, because you have your newly found friends by your side. You learn lots of things with your friends. Then you realize, somehow these friends you met, became your family. You probably even made different friend groups, that’s perfectly fine, it’s just more added family.

Sophomore year rolls and you are still figuring this life thing out, and we are living, young, wild, free and mostly broke. We’ve graduated from dormitories to apartments or houses, and you and your friends try to figure out how to decorate the place. Now you actually have to cook, and clean, and then clean up after cooking. You show off the meal you just cooked on all of social media to show the world how much of a grown up you are. You stay up late talking about how class is hard and how much homework you have over a glass of wine (yet you’re still not doing your homework). You have finally learned how to somewhat grocery shop, and to somewhat make your place look decent when mom and dad come to visit for a weekend. You can now host parties and pre-games for game days, aka the best days ever. And after a few laundry mix ups, you have finally learned how to separate dark from light and all white. But you miss campus living, how convenient it was and how easy it was to grab food. You miss how all of your friends were right across the hall or the street, not all spread out. You may lose contact with some of those freshmen friends, but they still hold a special place in your heart, and whenever you run into them, it's always fun to catch up with them. You start to learn that you make mistakes and that life may not go as planned, but you have your friends for moral support.

Junior year comes faster than you thought it would. For the majority of us, it’s the year we turn 21. We’ve waited all of sophomore year for this. We’ve counted down the days, impatiently and now the tables have turned. You are now able to go to a bar and drink legally, with the endless amounts of money that you don't have. But, there’s nothing better than an after exam, margarita. There’s nothing better than enjoying a cold beer on the patio on a beautiful day –– no matter what day of the week it is. There is nothing like those great conversations over drinks, chips and queso with your best friends. The day you turned 21 will always be very special, even if you personally don’t remember it, because your friends made it special. They took the pictures. They carried you out of the bar, and for the ladies, they held your hair back. To go drink is the best part of any day, especially after a long day of school and work. Life is so stressful as a college student, we can never seem to get it together, and if we look like we have it together, that assumption is probably wrong. It’s time to start thinking what we need to do with our lives. We only have one or two more years before mom and dad cut us off completely. Now after reading this, you may think we are alcoholics. Well, we are not. We are just simply living the college life. Just like business professionals need a drink after a stressful day of work. Students need a drink after long hours of studying for exams, to find out that only half of the review sheet was actually on the exam, and you had to guess on the other half of the test. We work hard and we play hard.

Senior year arrives (or super senior), and it’s time to wrap it all up. Everything we built together within our friendships will soon be a memory, as we trade in our youth to enter adulthood. The memories of our apartments will be there, as we pack everything up before we head our separate ways. It is time to put away the pictures on the wall of game days, and date parties, or of going out, the “candid” photos and so much more. It is now time to throw away the liquor bottles that we collected throughout the years that we used as decoration and trophies, because those aren’t acceptable in adulthood. It is now time to fold the flags of our universities, fraternities, sororities, or organizations and put them in a box with our T-shirts and other college things. We leave behind the memories of the university grounds we used to walk through, on our way to class.

The memories of walking through campus and thinking, I am proud to attend this university, it is so beautiful. The memories of the bars, drinks, the game days, spring breaks, laying out by the pool, late nights at the library and everything in-between. We say goodbye to the carelessness and the, "whatever, I'm in college and this is totally acceptable, excuse." College is a time in your life when you are forced to grow up, crack open that shell and leave your comfort zone. But, it is one of the best times of your life.

Your college friends are the ones who see you at your absolute worst, whether its passed out on top of a toilet, going through an ugly break up, going through a mental break down (which happens a lot). They are there to pick you up when you fail an exam. They are there to drag you out of your room to lift your spirits after a bad day.

They are the ones who make bad decisions with you. They are the ones who tell you no, you're in the wrong, and yes, I support you 100 percent. They are the ones who don't judge, and they are the ones who don't sugar coat the B.S. They are the ones who help you fight your insecurities, and they are the ones who are your wing-men.

For years, we kept thinking things would always be the same, but in the blink of an eye everything becomes a memory and we are now heading our separate ways. So you entered college a little lost, you might be leaving college a little lost because you don't know what the future has in store. But remember, the friends you made in college, are the friends who saved you. Then you realized, you were all lost together, and things all fell into place.

In the words of Vitamin C, (The Graduation Song)

When we leave this year, we won’t be coming back.

No more hanging out cause we are on a different track,

So say if you got something that you need to say,

You better say it right now because you don’t have another day.

And as our lives change, from whatever, we will sill be friends forever.

Time to take on the world. It’s not goodbye.

But it is the end of this college fairytale.