College is often referred to as some of the best years of your life. During your college years you begin to find yourself. There are many different things you’ll experience while in college that make you who you are and bring you happiness, but one of the most important things you find in college is friends.

Most of the time you and your friends live together, whether it’s in a dorm room, an apartment or a house, you guys will be spending almost every single day together. You eat together and nap together. You fight, cry, laugh, smile and do absolutely nothing together. You stay up all night watching movies or make a trip to Walmart at 2:00 a.m. for cupcakes. You’ll begin to learn things about each other that other people don’t know. You’ll be able to walk into the room and know that everyone is in a bad mood and not to talk to them, or that everyone had a really good day, and we should go out to dinner to celebrate someone passing a really hard test they studied their butts off for.

One of the coolest things about the friends you make in college is that you are all in that half teenager/ half adult stage, so you all have a lot of growing up to do and you get to do it together! You will help your friends, and your friends will help you. You’ll have so many adventures together. You’ll go through the same hard, stressful times even if they don’t happen at the same time. You’ll teach each other new things and be there to comfort each other when you have a mental breakdown.

You’ll begin to know everything about them. You’ll find yourself out at the store and see something that reminds you of one of your friends, and on more than one occasion you’ll impulsively buy it just because you thought of them, or you’ll read something really funny and send it to your friends because you know they’ll find it just as funny as you did. It’s funny because you meet these people, and they make you laugh, and they give you hope. They make you realize there is so much more to life than just going to college to get an education. They make you realize there are really good people out there who love you for you, despite your bad moods and attitudes from hell.

It comes to a point where you can’t remember how you ever lived your life without them in the first place and honestly, you wouldn’t want to. Friendship isn’t about whom you’ve known the longest, it’s about who walked into your life and never left. You’ll find yourself missing them all the time. A weekend apart sucks, let alone holiday breaks or summer vacation. For a while after being apart you feel a little bit lost because you are so used to seeing them every single day.

Dr. Seuss once wrote, “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into a mutual weirdness and call it love.” Love is the key to an everlasting friendship.

So here’s to the great friends that become family. I don’t know what I would do without you guys. Thanks for making my college experience so far something I know I’ll never forget.