When I first started UCLA, I almost forgot about my high school friends in the midst of the chaos of moving in, making friends, and starting classes. It's unbelievably easy to keep assuring yourself that you'll eventually make time to catch up with your friends and you're all just too busy right now. 

I recently travelled back to my hometown to visit my high school friends. While I was making travel arrangements, I worried that ten days was too long, that we had all changed from being apart for a year, that everything would be different. The truth is: despite how far away you are and how long you all have neglected each other, there is nothing better than coming home to your friends. 

There are very few people in the world who will love you unconditionally, understand you fully, and eagerly await your homecoming. Your high school friends encompass a large percentage of this special population. As soon as I caught a glimpse of my friends, the anxiety and worry that had been eating me alive vanished and I was filled with such incredible joy that can only be described as the feeling you get when you are finally home. Even though all my friends had chosen to stay on the East Coast for school while I chose to come to California, it was as if I had never left. With my parents deciding to relocate alongside me, going home for breaks meant coming home to a strange town that I felt no connection to rather than the place I had called home for over eight years. 

It is indisputable that everyone goes through an "awkward phase". Besides your family, only your high school friends will remember how terrible yours was. They are the only ones who knew you before you were a small fish in a big pond. They are the only ones you can recollect past memories (most likely the ridiculouly embarassing ones) and laugh with until there are tears in everyone's eyes. There's just something so fragile and precious about having a group of friends who have shared a part of their lives with you. They're the ones who are a part of your past, your present, and your future. 

A relationship is only as strong as the experiences you share and the work that you put in it. Suffering through middle and high school together in a town too small for its own good has bonded my friends and I in an unimaginable way. There are very few people who I would ever choose to spend an extended amount of time with. The memories that I cherish the most aren't the ones spent in an exotic place or having a crazy adventure- they're the memories of driving around town at night (because everything in Burlington closes at 9) because we have nothing better to do and discussing our dreams, fears, and insecurities. They're the memories of laying in bed all day watching the most ridiculous shows while eating pretzels and hummus at 1 am with my best friends. 

Growing up with parents who thought it was a good idea to move at least once a year, I got used to making quick and easy friendships that would end as soon as I moved. I thought it would be the same when I got to Burlington until my parents finally decided to be a normal family for once and settle down. I will be forever grateful to the girls who welcomed the awkward, freakishly small Asian girl with the roundest glasses the world has ever seen to their lunch table freshman year. Being a part of this group will always be one of the biggest blessings the world has bestowed upon me. Through all the ups and downs, petty drama, and the boys who came and left, we have honestly seen it all. 

This is my love letter to them. 

May we always have equilibrium.