I never liked the term best friend. I always thought that it was extremely exclusive and I always had so many of the awesome, I considered myself to have a few best friends. Even now, I have about a group of people that I call my best friends. But there is one friend that I have had for my entire life, my first best friend, that I have gotten so used to having in my life, I seem to have forgotten how much she deserves to be written to and about. Going against all of my writing rules, I'm going to write

To my first best friend,

You bring the saying, "since day one," to life. We have been through everything from dance recitals, soccer games, choirs, marching band, and all the way to breakups together. We text each other's moms and knocking is a foreign concept at this point.

You lived a bike ride away and I remember coming to your house knowing that once I got there, your dad was going to take us to Blockbuster and Sonic. You were the only person I knew who found abandoned bird eggs, and kept them warm in a little jewelry box to keep them safe. And when I dropped an egg, you cried and told your mom but still found it in your sweet little heart to play Polly Pockets with me until it was time for me to go home. We walked around the neighborhood singing "A Whole New World" at the top of our lungs and didn't even care when those crazy gypsy people down the street glared at us when we walked by.

You showed me what CMT was and that it played music non-stop until 3 a.m. and how to make my creepy Furby stop talking forever (and I am so thankful). You convinced me to see my first scary movie and I've loved them ever since, but they're so much better when you're around to narrate. We went to our first movie with no parents, and saw Star Wars together... and man did we feel cool.

We went through every phase of life together; monogrammed dresses and pigtails. When we got to middle school, we listened to angsty music and wore super skinny jeans and woke up a little earlier just to straighten our hair and put on more eyeliner. We sat in the back of classes and disliked American Eagle and the color pink more than any other student in the school, and once we grew out of that, we kept the pictures and laughed at ourselves for it just to make sure we never returned to it.

Once we got to high school, people warned us that we'd move our separate ways... but we did the opposite. We joined the marching band and made dance line together (as if we wouldn't spend Friday nights together already). We double dated for two years. We sat together in the alto section in choir and carpooled to school before we could both drive. We traveled with the band and choir and were each other's bus and plane buddies. We took our first trip to the beach with our own car and (even though we followed my mom the whole way) we celebrated our first "adult beach trip" and jammed to every country song that had come out that June without a care in the world.

When we announced that we were going to separate colleges, people asked my mom, "What're they going to do without each other?" And I hadn't thought about it until moving day came. You moved three hours away and I moved one. And for the first time in my life, I was afraid. I was afraid that we were going to be another story of high school friends going their separate ways, and meeting back up at the 10-year reunion. But our freshman year of college started and we texted all of the time and sent each other birthday presents. I even came to AU once or twice because I missed you so much and you're not very good at directions. We spent days together over Christmas break watching movies and drinking wine and catching each other up on the days that we'd missed.

Here we are, in our junior year of college, and I still have yet to meet another friend like you. All of my most favorite memories are with you. From singing together in church, to crying over each other's breakups, to "Grey's Anatomy" binging to ice cream and sleepovers, you were, are, and will always be the friend who taught me about life, love, and faith. You helped me see the positive of everything, and when I needed to see the negative, you held me through that too. You helped me grow in ways I never thought that I could. You've shown me what true friendship should look like, even in the times that I didn't deserve it.

So thank you for loving me through the annoying, awkward, angry, and long distance phases of life. I can't wait to see where it takes us next.