Dear my graduated friends,
I can’t believe your time as a college student is over. As I hop onto the rollercoaster of emotions I feel saying goodbye to you, I hope you slide in alongside me and hold on tight through the memories of the ride of our lives. It’s going to be one filled with laughter, tears, screaming and so much more laughter.
At the risk of sounding trite I say to you, I’m so proud. Not only was I able to be there as you struggled through group projects and finals but I was able to be there as you grew through them. Your determination that began every morning with a pot of coffee and ended every night with a glass or bottle of wine never teetered. I hope that you never forget the times you felt alive learning an entire semester’s work in one night.
Although it is completely selfish on my part, I wish the university could hold onto your diploma just a little bit longer. Not only is it daunting to think our houses won’t be one whole step away ever again, but I simply don’t want you to go. Traveling several hours away from home, I threw myself into a huge world of 30,000 and with no time at all found individuals who make saying goodbye the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
The way we met — whether it was in an English class, Craigslist roommate listings, through another friend or a Friday night social in the girl’s bathroom exchanging drunken hugs and “I love you’s” — I have to say it was fate. Finding best friends in the most simple of ways ended up being part of a much greater plan.
There are no experiences greater than the ones you embark upon with your girlfriends. Your love and trust for each other grows with every new breakup and box hair dyed session. I hope that as you accept your alumni and professional status you begin making salon appointments from now on but you always remember where the color ideas originally came from.
“You don’t go to college to meet your husband, you go to college to meet your bridesmaids,” isn’t the most accurate of quotes, but it is one that almost completely hits home for us. While we went to college for a higher education to one day excel in the workforce, we definitely avoided hours of homework and adulthood out and about where we found those bridesmaids and those potential husbands.
Whether it was finding matches on Tinder, dating the doctor who treated you or dating a boy 20 times before you finally put all of his stuff onto the porch, the dating shenanigans college had to offer us will go down in history. I hope you find someone you're proud to be with. I hope he loves you unconditionally and that he understands we're forever a packaged deal.
As I haven’t yet graduated, I don’t know what it is like to feel like you left your mark but I hope that you saved a spot for me next to yours. I never actually realized how big the world is until we started promising annual visits to each other’s separated states. I hope that no matter what, babies or careers, we keep those promises. My life wouldn’t be as crazy, messed up, dramatic, fun or full without you.
Because there are so many hopes, dreams and words I have for you that I could never put into a piece of writing good or explanatory enough, listen to this.
I wish you all the luck in the world.
Love,
Me
