Everyone says college is the time to make new friends and have the time of your life, but you never realize how hard it is without your best friend by your side… especially on the first day of school.

For the past 18 years, I have always started the first day of school with my best friend (my twin sister). This year was a little bit different now since were in college and we go to different schools. There was not a big photo shoot on our front lawn this year like there was in previous years. I was not walking down the big hallways of my high school with my best friend by my side looking for my classes.

Instead, I was walking around this big campus alone, not knowing where my first class was. I was the freshman with the map on my phone trying to find each class. I walked into numerous buildings thinking “oh, this is the right one,” yet I was on the complete opposite side of campus from where I needed to be. But I was not the only one… I then slowly realized that no one had their best friend with them to start this new journey of their life, and every one was in the same position of knowing no one besides their roommate(s). Being separated from your best friend is the weirdest thing and I cannot even explain.

293 miles apart, when I had lived just 10 steps down the hall from her. For the past 18 years, we have done everything together, from going to school, getting our nails done and going to lunch every day. It’s so strange not being able to stay up late watching marathons of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” and eating tubs of ice cream. But this only makes me more excited for the time when we will be home together. The little day to day things you didn’t even think of now make you miss being miles apart from one another.

Now two months into college, I see how hard it is without each other, but I also see why it was good for us to go to separate schools and start our own lives. It was time for us to be able to branch out into the world and find our own identity and not be attached at the hip like we have been since we were born. We have both done some amazing things since we have been apart which I am so happy about, but at the same time, I wish we were able to do them together.

Being apart has taught me a lot of things but the one thing it has taught me was going to school without your best friend is extremely difficult and I am glad that the past 18 years we were able to spend them together! Hope you're loving school and having the time of your life, but please don’t forget about me!

XO