Best friends. These are the people you think of on the good days, the bad days, when you think of something funny that happened, when something great happened they are the first ones you want to run and tell it to. Fortunate enough for me, I was born with my best friends. Before I could even talk I had best friends. I had people I was going to grow up with. I had older and younger brothers and sisters besides my actual older brother. Whether we liked it or not, we were stuck as best friends forever. We are all different ages, so we were always on the run in different directions, but it had its perks.When someone had something going on, the other person had already gone through it. The downside of it was, since there was such an age difference between me and the two oldest, they would be going to college when I would be in the middle of middle school or just beginning high school.

For the rest of us we were all one year apart between the three of us and three and four years between the youngest so we continued to stay close, not to say the rest of us didn't, but like I said, we were in different stages of life.

Nowadays, it's a text, a snapchat or an occasional FaceTime call here or there just to catch up because now we are all in different stages of our lives. Some of us are in different states, some just different towns, some in college, some with adult jobs, children, engaged, living on our own or still in high school. Life is different for all of us.

That's the thing about growing up with best friends; we all have to go our separate ways at one point in time or another. Remember those times we used to dance in the basement, turn all the lights off, and use that little disco ball and jam to NSYNC? Or when we would be jumping on mattresses in the pool in the summertime. Life was so much easier then. We were always together. All of us. The seven of us.

Growing up doesn't necessarily mean growing apart, but sometimes we do and there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean we love each other any less or our friendship means any less than they did when we were younger. So to my best friends of a lifetime: I love you all. I always will.

I will always have your back no matter how far away we are from one another or how far apart we may grow. I will always love you all no matter how far life takes us and I am always just a phone call or text away and my door is (literally) always open for any of you to come visit. Don't ever forget that!

Love,

Cass