I don’t know if you remember the day we met, but I do.

I remember the butterflies in my stomach as I stepped onto the campus of my future school for the first time.

I remember thinking I would never make any friends while everyone around me clicked with each other instantly.

I remember sitting next to you for a game of Colorado trivia and thinking you were the kind of person who would never want to be friends with me.

I remember letting you borrow my favorite pen and then being too afraid to ask for it back.

I remember sticking to you like glue the entire weekend hoping that maybe your self-confidence and wittiness would rub off on me in 24 hours.

I remember people telling us we look alike, but thinking you were 10 times prettier than me.

I remember having to give myself a pep talk before I asked you to be my roommate, just in case you thought of me as the weird girl you couldn’t wait to get away from.

Honestly, if you had asked me that day where we would be four years later, I wouldn’t have said we’d be here. I never would have known that even after a marriage, school transfers and a semester on opposite sides of the world, we would end up back in the same state with the same sweet friendship. I never would have guessed our lives would look completely different while still being connected.

But I am so thankful they did.

I know you’re probably vomiting in your mouth at how cheesy this article is (and I’m just getting started), but in your words, “the amount of cheese we can eat together is unbeatable.”

Best friend, I don’t know what I would do without you. I learned more from you in the walls of our apartment than I ever did from a professor in the walls of a classroom. You taught me how to stand up for myself, because if I don’t, someone will always steal my food. You taught me that sassy isn’t always funny, even when you have the best intentions. You taught me that naked nails are never okay- no exceptions, and, if putting makeup on is too much effort, glasses are a lifesaver.

Best friend, because of you, I am brave.

Without you I wouldn’t have the courage to talk to boys (literally, that was all you), I would have never left CCU and I wouldn’t have moved to a different continent.

Best friend, without you I would be lost. But with you I know that no matter how far I run from my problems or how damaging my mistakes seem to be, you will always be there to laugh at my problems and then binge watch “Grey’s Anatomy” until the pain goes away—or until Shonda Rhimes kills everyone we love and a new pain takes over.

Best friend, you are so much more than my best friend. You are my person. You will always be my person.