Last week, I got my graduation application and set my schedule for my final semester as an undergrad. I got to thinking about my time as a college student.

I came here knowing a total of five people. My three friends from back home, my friend who I knew in high school, who was a sophomore at the time I arrived here, and the most long-term friend I ever had who, to this day, is still one of my closest and dearest friends. College has this way of bringing people into your life you'd never expect. I met all my friends in the residence hall that we lived in. We've stayed extremely close throughout our time here. We have family dinners as often as we can, we go to the movies, but never without each other, and we never go to parties without each other. Everyone knows that if we are invited somewhere, it's a package deal. You get at least three of us, if not all of us. They are who you get to know as your family.

They become your family because you’re away from your actual family. They are the ones you call when you pass or fail a test, have dinner and go to doctor's appointments with, or they go with you. They learn everything about you and you learn everything about them. It’s like you’ve known them for a lifetime, when its only been three years. They become your roommates when you can finally live off campus and the ones to support you through everything, even the terrible, and I mean terrible, decisions about relationships or getting drunk on a Tuesday evening when you have a 9 a.m. the next day, all because it's been an awful week, and it's ONLY Tuesday. They are the ones you bicker and have petty arguments with a lot, but they’d be the first ones to scream at someone or threaten to kick someone's ass if your feelings got hurt or they pushed you in line to get into Jake’s.

Your friends you meet in college become people you hate doing things without. When someone not really a part of your friend group asks you to hang, you feel weird, but you want to ask so badly if you can bring your squad along. Most of the time, you just turn the invitation down, because you just want to hang out with your regular friend group.

All this got me wondering about what I am going to do without them after graduation. We will all be going our separate ways, some off to new states (one of us already did that, props to you, Fabby). It will be a rough transition, but I hope to stay in touch and meet up frequently. I love them; they are my people. We’re loud, the conductors of the hot mess express, and the most different group of people you’ll ever meet, but I wouldn’t be who I am without them.