“So done. Can’t wait to go to college.” The generic tweet that a girl makes in high school signaling that she is having drama with her friends. We’ve all been there whether we like to admit it or not.

However, I wish I could go back and tell my high school self not to wish time away. I would tell myself that these girls who I am mad at for the next hour will be the girls in a few years that prove to be my forever friends.

Some you will talk to every second of every day.

Whether you are Snapchatting, texting or Facetiming you are always in close contact with her. You are close with their new friends from school, you know the drama that happened last weekend at that party, you know their class schedule and when is the best time to call for a long chat. Of course, you make the trip to their school when you have a break and vice versa. Because without these trips how else are you supposed to know exactly what they are talking about when they tell you stories?

Some may drift.

There will be girls who you don’t text every day or every week. Ones who aren’t in your “go to” group chat. You won’t know much about their social life at school but once your home, it’s like you never missed a beat. You reminisce, you laugh, and it feels like nothing has changed. You were super close at one point but time brought you in different directions. Regardless of this, you always make time for the annual Panera date because you can’t wait to hear what they’ve been up to.

Some are on a different page than you.

Not everyone does the same thing for college. Maybe you’re a plane ride away and they’re a short drive from home. Or maybe one of you decided to commute while the other decided to dorm. It’s okay that you haven’t been able to fully connect for a while because you don’t have the same things in common anymore. Of course as soon as you come home for breaks, you remember all of the reasons why you have made the effort to stay so close.

Some are still in high school.

If you came from a small high school you probably know that it is almost impossible not to be friends with the grades below and above you. So when you come home for fall break or a short week in March you look forward to the Dunkin and Crecco’s dates. You get to live vicariously through your high school BFF, sometimes wishing it is socially acceptable to go to that football game with them instead of just dropping them off.

You’re going to meet so many people outside of your group of high school friends. And that’s the awesome part about new beginnings. But friendships take a while to build. Your high school friends might even be your childhood friends, making it pretty hard for your new friends to compete with. This is 12 years of memories, secrets, laughs, tears, and so much more that just can’t be formed in the four short years of college.

Your high school friends are the ones who know you better than you know yourself. They are the ones you crave to see after just a few short weeks of being separated. They are the ones that will tell you how it is whether you want to hear it or not. They will help you with all of the tough decisions you have to make about your future because they have your best interest at hand. They will be the ones that you can go to with fragile information and be confident that they are not going to tell anyone. They will be your frantic phone call when your “new best friend” turns out to be everything you thought she wasn’t. They will be the sole reason why you have abs. Not because you both have been working out but because you can’t stop laughing when you’re together. (Those abs will go away shortly once you reunite at the diner.) So for these reasons … and many more … they will be your forever friends.