Our high school best friends often get the short end of the stick. They are with us through some of the most awkward, uncomfortable and sometimes downright terrible years of our lives, yet they remain with us, without judgment and without so much as batting an eye. We often forget to thank them for standing by us through those four formative years and beyond.

So here, to my own high school best friend, is a note of thanks:

Thank you for being the one person I can text a Kardashian meme to, with no explanation, after not talking for three weeks, and thank you for replying with an equally ridiculous Kardashian meme. The little things like that remind me how blessed I am to be part of a friendship like ours.

Thank you for standing by my side even when you disagreed with me, even when I was wrong and even when everybody else had left. Your fierce loyalty gives me strength and confidence to this very day.

Thank you for being a part of my family and for making me a part of yours. I still so often think of pieces of advice and guidance your parents and siblings gave us (like to always go for the chicken soup), and I hope that my family was able to instill some of the same inspiration in you.

Thank you for influencing me to drink black coffee sometimes. You may not know that you did that, but you did, and I am a better adult (okay, pretend adult) for it.

Thank you for always picking up right where we left off the last time we saw each other. While the gaps between our time together used to span just hours, they now span days, weeks and even months—but I never feel too far from you, because our souls will always be linked by the bond we share.

Thank you for remembering the littlest things about me and my story, from my cousin’s dog’s name to my dad’s favorite song to my deepest and greatest fears and regrets. Your knowledge of me is soothing and comforting.

Thank you for not tiring of hearing the never-ending, repetitive tales of my family and friends and our dramas. (Or maybe you do tire of them, but thank you for always pretending like you don’t.)

Thank you for loving me through braces and bangs, through a move to college and a move across state, through bad boys and worse style, through cattiness and catastrophe, through elation and agony. I never doubted that through everything, you would be there to hold me up when I could not stand on my own.

Thank you for enjoying Halloween Oreos, creepy Netflix documentaries, royal family fun facts and hours-long life talks as much as I do. And thank you for sharing them all with me.

Thank you for visiting me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for being you.

All my love,

Maura