Dear best friend,

We had been in the same friend group since sixth grade. You had always been a good friend of mine, but we didn’t get close until you transferred high schools for the first time. The first time you switched wasn’t even that bad because you were just switching to a school in the next town over. I couldn’t even blame you for wanting to leave; the majority of our high school was just counting down the days until they could walk out the door and never have to return. It wasn’t until you announced your move to a town that was two hours away that I started to imagine my life without you living down the street. The feeling got stronger every time I drove past your house and saw the “for sale” sign gravely posted by your mailbox. And even though that two-hour drive turned into a six-hour drive when your parents' job took you up to New Hampshire, our friendship only seemed to grow stronger. So thank you for everything.

Thank you for always being there when I needed someone.

No matter how far away you moved, I always knew that you would be there to answer my facetime calls when I was stressed, needed to vent, or just wanted someone to talk to. Even though you were no longer living right down the street, you were always the person I felt I could turn to.

Thank you for constantly making me laugh.

There has not been a FaceTime call that did not end in the formation of a new inside joke because of the ridiculous things that we would say. Even though we were in different states we still managed to make the same stupid jokes that we had when we were younger (and they still made us laugh just as hard).

Thank you for always answering my calls.

There’s no one else on the planet that I would want to listen to talk for hours at a time. Even though you moved six hours away, it never felt as though you were far.

Thank you for sharing my weird sense of humor.

Who else would laugh with me for hours about a joke about what lazy dogs do for fun or make up elaborate stories about their middle school teachers that will go on for years?

If I’m being honest with you and myself, I didn’t think we would be this close when you moved so far away. I didn’t think that you moving away would bring us closer than we had ever been before. The fact that we don’t spend every day together gives us so much more to talk about when we call each other and it makes your visits so much more special. As much as I wish I could have seen you in the hallways of our high school during senior year, I am so happy that we became the friends we are today.

Even now when we’re almost 1,400 miles away, it is comforting to know that distance has nothing on us.