For the past few years, you've been about a mile away from me whenever I needed you. There was never anything that a study session at the Union or a night at our favorite pizza place couldn't fix. Our friendships don't know much about distance: Sure, summers we were apart but the promise of being back within a mile of each other with the coming school year was enough to bridge the gap.

We are college friends.

We met in college.

Our friendship started and grew in college.

But our friendship should not, will not, cannot end in college.

We met and cultivated this friendship in this city filled with cheap dining options and a lot of bad weather. We've seen each other drunk off of our asses in each one of our separate homes, and we've seen each other have full-on mental breakdowns too many times to count. Most of our memories take place within the confines of this town.

This town has been where I lived for the past 4 years, but I wouldn't dare consider it a "home" if it didn't have you in it. I do not ache to leave this random town in the middle of nowhere because of its low-priced movie theaters or its educational facilities.

I ache to leave here because it means leaving this: The friendship I have known for so long, a friendship I equate with this place. The great food means nothing if it isn't one of you (or all of you) sitting on the opposite side of the table eating with me. This place hasn't shaped me into who I am: You have. And for that, I will be forever grateful.

Our lives are going to change. We will go different directions, and the couple of streets that have been between us for the last few years will turn into a couple of cities, a couple of states. And as much as I like to hope it doesn't, our friendship is going to change. "Hey, let's go out tonight" texts are going to turn into, "hey, we haven't talked in forever! How are things?" very quickly.

Running into each other in the union is going to turn into seeing if we have the time and money to make it to each other's weddings and other big moments. This place has given us the luxury of making the promise of "always being there for one another," but that is a luxury that is slowly fleeting.

No matter where our lives go, though, I promise that my college experience and life are different, better because of you. This place is nothing but a college in the middle of a city in the middle of a state.

You brought the fun.

You brought the energy.

You brought the magic.

And all of my fondest memories of the last four years will include you.

We may be leaving this place all too quickly, but it'll take more than a diploma and a decorated graduation cap to keep me from you and to keep this friendship from blossoming outside of the confines of our little college town.

Thank you for it all.