I met three of my best friends in the third grade. We have been friends for 11 years, and I am thankful for that every day. In elementary school, we held water in our mouths and tried to make each other laugh, forcing us to become fountains in the middle of class. We fought over whether Britney Spears was actually bald or not. We would play the “no-laughing-game” at lunch over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk, telling hilarious knock-knock jokes and making monkey faces trying to force someone to burst into laughter before us. We would look forward to playing at each other’s houses all week to get us through our rigorous cursive lessons. We became plump, tie-dye-wearing sixth-graders together, laughing the whole time.

Thank you for being my first friends.

Thank you for making me laugh till I cried.

Thank you for loving me even though I wore Crocs and matching gauchos.

Thank you for telling my crush I liked him at recess.

Soon we morphed into conceited middle schoolers. We passed notes constantly, usually beginning them with, “Hey loser, your note really sucked, I don’t even know why I’m writing you back,” or something just as kind. We constantly gossiped about who liked who, because what else is there to talk about in middle school? We snickered about what party was cool enough for us, and what cute guys would be there. We spent every moment together, either loitering at the mall or at movies. We never wanted to grow up, because “high schoolers do drugs, and I will NEVER do drugs.”

Thank you for loving me even though a PINK sweatshirt was like my other skin.

Thank you for taking peace sign mirror pictures with me and always telling me the back of my hair was straight.

Thank you for dating that really embarrassing guy, so the one I dated didn’t look that bad comparatively.

Thank you for telling me those other girls I hung out with were dumb and only cared about hanging out with 17-year-old boys.

When we finally became rebellious high schoolers we kept each other grounded. We drove around aimlessly, just to spend more time together. We hated almost everyone else at that lame school. We sat in our favorite ice cream shop until the angsty worker barked at us to leave. We realized that our time together was soon coming to end, and we clung to our “no-laughing-game” memories.

Thank you for being there when he broke my heart.

Thank you for being at every lame party, and somehow making it fun.

Thank you for spending every summer lighthearted and barefooted with me.

Thank you for being the only thing that motivated me to go to school.

Now we are all in different colleges across the country. We may only see each other once every few months, but we are constantly talking. We text about the f**kboys in our lives. We Snapchat videos of us dancing to each other’s favorite songs at frat houses. We worry about the future together, and validate each other by confirming we have absolutely no idea what we’re doing. We call every once in a while to tell the other how much we love them, and how their college friends aren’t as great as us.

Thank you for keeping in touch.

Thank you for making it seem like nothing has changed when were back together.

Thank you for making me laugh from thousands of miles away.

Thank you for being my forever friends.