When we leave high school, we wonder what friendships we will maintain through our college years. It was quite a wide awakening when I got to college and most of the friendships I had started to dissipate. I went from talking to some people every day to talking to them once a month and soon after not at all. It was upsetting to learn to how easily people can leave our lives, but in the end it was an important lesson learned. Those that were leaving my life were never meant to be there for very long.

Your forever friend is the one who you keep in touch with despite the distance. The person you can trust your secrets with. The friend who understands your quirks and accepts your weirdness. You both share hundreds of inside jokes and can make each other laugh until you lose your breath. No amount of time apart disrupts your friendship because it will always feel like you spoke just yesterday.

Everyone has a forever friend and if you haven’t found them yet you will soon. When you do y’all will be inseparable. Essentially, they are your permanent selfie and picture buddy. Not only that, but they will be your partner in crime. The kind of person who helps stalk your crush online.

Through all of my fallen friendships, there was one that withstood every bump and curve in the road. I met my forever friend in first grade and we have been friends ever since. Years later we are still thick as thieves. When we first met, she believed our friendship to be unlikely. She thought that my head was way too small and she did not want to be friends with someone with a head like mine. Odd, I know. Eventually, first impressions began not to matter as a bond began to develop as members of the advanced reading group. Today we continue to bond over our shared nerdiness.

I feel extremely lucky to have a friend I can always rely on. We’ve been friends for 14 years and I am most certainly looking forward to the many more years of friendship and life experiences we will share with one another. I am thankful that she was able to overlook my small head because if she hadn’t we would never have the friendship we have today. Wherever our lives take us, I know that we will remain close and continue to have the friendship that we have today.

All in all, it’s important to remember that friends come and go. People leave your life just as much as new people enter it. Yet through all of this, you will always have your constants. The people that never walk away when things get difficult or complicated. Friends come in all shapes and sizes and what matters most is that they always stand by your side. These are the kinds of people that make your forever friend and certainly make life worthwhile.