As you are growing up, it is easy to make and to maintain friendships. When you are really young, everyone gets invited to each other’s parties, and your parents arrange playdates for you to see your friends on the weekends and always make sure you get together a few times over the summer. Once you get a little older, you set up these types of activities for yourself, and you also begin to get involved in sports and clubs that you and your friends are all a part of. Then, when you are in high school, you and your friends hang out as much as you can, whether it is going over each other’s houses, going to events at school, or catching a movie at the mall, you try to spend as much time together as possible. Not to mention that all the while you see each other five days a week at school! Inevitably, over the course of time, some of the friendships you make will remain, and some will not, and you consequently have a variety of friends— some that you made while you were five, and some that you made your senior year of high school— that you know are your best friends, and will stay that way for life.

This proves to be true when you have time off, when you and your best friends spend endless days and nights together, and yet never get tired of each other’s company. Even when you start to go your separate ways, whether it is because you are starting college or someone is going to a different school, you still keep in contact frequently, even if it is just a quick text giving each other an update on your day.

As time goes on, however, you do not get to talk as often as you would like, and see each other much less than you would used to. It is not because you do not care, or do not want to stay in touch with each other, but you find that school, work, activities— life in general—all get in the way. Whenever you get the chance, though, you make sure to make time to see them, even if it is only to grab a quick lunch. It is then that you realize that no matter how much time has gone by since you last saw each other, it is as if nothing has changed. It could be months since you were last able to catch up, but it is as if you saw each other yesterday. It is in these moments that you come to fully recognize how close of friends you are, and that your lives would not be the same without each other.

For true friendships, no amount of distance or time can come between them. Just because you and your best friends are not able to talk everyday, it does not mean that you do not value each other. Sometimes, life understandably gets in the way. What ultimately matters in the end is that you know you will always be there for each other and have each other’s back, and that nothing could ever break the bonds of your friendship.