To My Hometown Friends,

I cannot even begin to put into words how amazing you have made my life and how grateful I am for all of the experiences that I have had with you. You have all given me guidance and happiness when I needed it most and you helped prepare me for the world outside of our small little town. You have given me years of glorious memories to look back and smile on and I cannot thank you enough for that.

You’ve been by my side through so many monumental moments of my life. You were there when we transferred from elementary school to middle school and then again when we moved on from middle school to high school. You were there during high school to help keep me grounded when the pressure of classes and the impending doom of college weighed me down. You sat with me during lunch and classes and made what seemed like the four longest years of our life not so terrible. You were there to celebrate when I decided on a college and you put me at ease when we graduated from high school and it came time for me to move into the college of my dreams. You made our small, boring old town a place that I miss because of all of the memories we shared there.

Even now that we're apart, you're still the people who know me best. You give me impartial advice on what to do regarding my college experience. You're the people I can call late at night when I don't want to walk back from class or the library alone and you always have the best stories. You're still there for me even though we are not psychically together anymore.

For years, you have been the people that I can talk to about anything and everything. We can talk endlessly about our favorite character from our favorite book. We can talk about our favorite song by our favorite artist. We can laugh and cry and sing and dance. We can do all of this because you know everything about me because we've known each other for so many years.

Thank you for building me up when I am down. Thank you for embracing my craziness and accepting my weirdness. Thank you for being the best friends I could ever ask for. There isn’t anyone else I would rather call my friends. So, to my hometown friends, the people who I grew up with, the people who defended me and made me laugh and cared about me, the people who shaped me, thank you for everything.