I'll start off with the fact that my college best friend and I lived together two of the three years we've been friends. We've laughed, cried and yelled, along with every other emotional action out there. She is one of the women who will stand next to me on my wedding day — one of those people I know will be in my life forever. Now she leaves me.

Flashback to freshman year, when I walked into a friend's dorm and met her quirky roommate who had a few too many TV show collections on DVD. She seemed nice and all, but it didn't even cross my mind that three and a half years later, she would be the one I end up calling my best friend. Even though both of us drifted slowly from that mutual friendship, something (or maybe everything) between the two of us stayed. Now, fast forward to the end of our senior year. She graduated and is moving to a new city while I stay for a victory lap, and I couldn't imagine feeling more conflicting emotions.

My first emotion, of course, is excitement for my sweet girl. She's in a new city, with a new roommate and new coworkers, so I know she will be nervous. (I mean.. we're talking about the girl who doesn't even like to go out with my work friends, because she doesn't know them well.) She might even hate it once her own initial excitement wears off. I also know, however, that she has a kickass sense of humor and she's loyal to a fault. As soon as she opens up to new people, opportunities and experiences, she's going to have the time of her life.

Second, I'm beyond jealous — no more studying, no more papers, no more tests. I dread the extra year I have to stay in college because it took me so long to figure out what I think (key word think) I want to do. I'm so checked out at this point, its not even funny, and here she is moving on with her life and closing the chapter that is college.

I'm also not jealous, because with a big girl job comes big girl responsibilities, big girl bills and big girl work days. I'm definitely not ready for that, and that's one place we differ. She's intelligent beyond belief, and she worked her butt off for everything she has accomplished. I know she's going to kill it in the real world, and she’s going to be the best environmental engineer New Orleans has ever seen.

Most of all, I'm distraught. I could try to count the times we've walked into the other's room to talk and just started crying, but I'd be here for days. On the other side of the spectrum, the laughs we've shared outweigh anything else. They even sometimes came alongside drunkenly feeding rotisserie chicken to our cat, leading to some other food preference discoveries like pepperoni. (Yes, our cat likes rotisserie chicken and pepperoni, but she's healthy and happy ... don’t call animal services.) We have shared so many firsts, lasts, and almost that it just doesn’t seem right to live in this same house without her.

So now, as I sit here writing about this sweet girl from the honors dorm, she's leaving me for her new life. I have to move on and find a new roommate, finish college, potentially move away one day too. With all of that being said, the bottom line is that seeing my best friend move on with her life makes me feel a little left behind, but I've got so much love and so much support for her, I can't help but praise and celebrate her and the bond we share.