As I sit in my apartment, hundreds of miles away from home, I look around at the pictures that surround me. Pictures of my hometown friends. Pictures of the people that made me who I am today.

My hometown friends are the ones I can count on for anything. When a boy breaks my heart, they are the ones I call. When I need advice about something, they are ones I text. When I’m going home for the weekend, I make sure to let them know so that we can plan on having a wine night or meeting for coffee.

Even though we have all gone our separate ways, I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.

These are the girls that are going to be by my side when I get married. These are the girls that know how to make me laugh when I’m upset. These are the ones who would drive hours to come see me just because they missed me.

Hometown friends are truly forever friends.

I miss the times where we would spend our Friday nights watching the boys of fall, and then going to half apps, gossiping about all of the people we saw making a fool of themselves.

I miss the times where we would just casually spend a couple hours at the humane society just because we didn’t want to go home. We would always try to convince someone to buy the animal and yet we never left with one.

I miss having my phone buzz nonstop because we would all be roasting each other in the group message.

But I know that even though those things are a part of the past, these people are still the ones I would take a bullet for and the ones that are always going to be a part of my life.

Now to my hometown friends reading this, I want to tell you this:

I miss you.

I hope you are doing well.

If you ever need anything, please know that I am just a phone call away.

I cannot wait to see you all when classes are done; I guarantee you, girls night is much needed.

I love you all, and I cannot wait to see you soon.