To the crazy group of girls who make me happy, laugh at my jokes, and have become my soul sisters;

Sometimes I think about how you're all a part of my life, how you know the little quirks that make up my personality, how you've become constants after basically a year or two. I'll remember the days that I've laughed so hard I've almost gotten sick and instead I just cried happy tears and lost the ability to breathe in the best way. I'll remember the pictures you'll text me and I'll text you, the jokes and memes that remind us of each other. Sometimes I'll think of how incredible it is to have girls of such high quality in my life as the girls I refer to as my best friends, my soul sisters. The girls who have become my own girl squad in the same way Taylor Swift's support system and friends have become hers.

We each have our own identity that most people associate with us when they hear our names, almost like a modern-day Breakfast Club without the detention, the boys, and instead with a bunch more girls. I would say we each fit a persona, just like the characters in The Breakfast Club, that everyone sees when they see us, but we're so much more than that. We have athletes who are medical laboratory science majors, English majors who are craftier than some of the art majors I know. I myself am a biology major who loves writing fiction and dreams of being a novelist one day. Pieces make us up, and we make up the pieces that are the whole in this little ragtag group I call my own.

You're all parts of your own squads, too, and I know that. It would be selfish of me to keep you to myself when your greatness shines bright and people can't help but stand and look at you in awe. It wouldn't be right of me to keep your light to myself. Instead, you've introduced me to those who make up your groups, your squads, in that helps in making my own light glow a little more. Reminds me that you're just incredible friends who like to include everyone, make everyone feel welcome and like seeing their friends and loved ones happy.

I look to the future, once we're out of college, and while that absolutely terrifies me because I know I'm nowhere near ready to leave this little haven of preparing for the real world and getting a job I'll have for the next fifty years, I feel better knowing you'll all still be by my side, or at least a text or call away. I think about the near future too, about how this coming year is going to be stressful and a lot to handle, but I know that there will be nights of talking about life and the world and watching The Bachelor and getting too into it for it to be okay. There will be lunch dates and nights when we'll get ready to go out together, I'll help you pick out a shirt because you're overthinking again and you'll help curl my hair because last time I burned my hand because you made me laugh. I think of how you'll be there when the stress of school and work and life is really getting to me and you'll be there to stay up and talk about nothing, maybe play some games on the Wii because sometimes it's good to take a break from real life and just live life.

I think about how I've found my bridesmaids through these days and nights of watching reality TV and complaining about classes and when laughing ends in minor injury, the girls who will celebrate with me and drink champagne with me and dance the night away with me along with my new husband. I think about how these little moments and these memories will be what I remember when I think of the best parts of college, will be what I take with me going forward when I need to feel a little brave. How I have a squad of fiercely protective friends standing behind me, who will still be there no matter what happens.

I think Taylor Swift was onto something when she created her girl squad. The 1989 era was the happiest of her life, you can see it in her eyes from the pictures of her and her friends, and in those of just her performing for her fans during her tour. Trust me, I was there for one, I could see the smile in her eyes. I now see why, because this era is the happiest of my life, too, and it's all thanks to you.

(And I think the smile in my eyes is obvious, too.)