This is not a goodbye letter, this is not a farewell. This is a letter of thanks, a letter of appreciation, and a letter of love to the girls who have impacted my life in so many ways.

To my high school besties,

I love you. I love you all so fully and so unconditionally. I love you regardless of your mistakes, bad choices and our differences. But do you know why I am able to say I love you so fully? The reason is because you all love me in the exact same way. That is what is so powerful and impacting about our friendships. We care so much for each other. We want nothing more than to see each other succeed. We want to support each other through everything and anything. We have been here for one another through it all. Well, now graduation is here and it is time to move on to the next chapters of our lives. Yeah, it can be scary as hell, sometimes I wonder how we are going to do it. But then I think who am I kidding, we can do anything. We can do anything we put our minds to. Our friend group is made up of girls who don't settle. We're a group of girls who are going to accomplish amazing things in our futures. As we prepare to move on to this new chapter in our lives, I have many things to thank you all for.

First off, thank you all for loving me through everything I've gone through over the years. Thank you for loving me during my highs and for loving me during my lows. You all were excited about every single one of my achievements and good choices. But anyone can love somebody when they are doing good; what y'all are so amazing for is loving me when I wasn't. Thank you for never giving up on me. Thank you for listening to me when I needed to talk, for always giving me a shoulder to cry on. Thank you for loving me regardless of my mistakes and for telling me it is okay to not have it all together. Thank you for accepting me when I was broken, and for loving me until I felt better. Thank you for showing that love through sweet notes, surprise coffee, treats and hugs. Thank you for all of the constant love and support through everything. Through every relationship, bad and good, y'all were there; through every fight and argument with boys, y'all were there—y'all were there through everything. I couldn't have gotten through high school without any of you.

Secondly, thank you for all for the amazing memories. I am so grateful for every girls' night, every dinner, every movie, every beach trip. There is nobody I would rather share my high school memories with. Looking back on some of the things we did, I think what on earth were we thinking? Well, I know now we weren't thinking; we were just living our lives and having fun. We didn't realize we were making the memories that will last us a lifetime. But that is what those memories are, timeless. We will never forget dressing up for the football games, eating ice cream at all hours of the night, what happened on spring break, and the embarrassments of prom. We will never forget all the nights we spent with each other just laughing at our stupid jokes. We will never forget all of the deep talks about life, boys and love that we had. We will never forget any of this. I am so grateful for all the memories we've made. But we still get to make more.

Here is the sad part. The part of the letter where I might tear up, not that I don't tear up every day that I think about leaving y'all. Yes, we aren't all going to the same schools. I think the reason is that one school couldn't handle all of us. Theoretically, we are all going our separate ways. But there is no way on earth we are going to be living separate lives. We all are going to keep up with one another, whether we think so or not. We care far too much about one another to just pack up and get gone without ever speaking. We will all be keeping in touch. Praise the Lord for Snapchat—I'll leave it at that. I cannot wait for all the road trips to see one another. I can't wait for all the group texts saying should I wear this or this. I cannot wait to meet your new friends and new boyfriends. I cannot wait to watch every single one of you impact other people's lives in the ways you have impacted mine.

God truly blessed me when he put you all into my life. I can't imagine my life throughout high school without you all in it. Thank you all for helping shape me into the person I am today. High school may be over, but our friendship sure isn't.

I love you girls so much,

Tess