Have you ever heard the phrase that sometimes you can turn people into a home? It’s true.

Every day you surround yourself with people, and if you’re like me, you surround yourself people who bring out the best in you. My friends that I’ve made since moving to college (and my friends from high school) make me laugh and cry and reevaluate who I am and remind me that I am strong and beautiful and fearless (or so they say), and because of that, I want to be around them like…a lot. Like every day. Like I have a standing dinner date with them without even having to plan it. That’s the kind of friendships I surround myself with.

So, upon my standing dinner date friends moving home for the summer, I sat in my bed on my first day eating dinner by myself and realized that I am homesick, after 1 day, for the people who attach to me at the hip. It’s so crazy to me how 10 months ago, these people were complete strangers to me. As a matter of fact, upon meeting one of my now best friends, I told her the first-day meeting that we were best friends and we often joke because once our friendship grew, she told me she had no intentions of being my best friend and thought I was crazy.

I helped my dinner dates drag all their paraphernalia they’ve hoarded in their rooms since they moved in in August down multiple flights of stairs, and I’ve never happier to do it because that’s what you do for the people you love. That’s what you do for your people. That’s what you do for your standing dinner dates.

It’s such an overwhelming feeling to think about the fact that I’ll have these people by my side for the next big years of my life and it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside knowing for the next couple years I’ll have a standing dinner date almost every night, and a car ride buddy and an “it’s 3 pm and I need sonic” date and an “it may be 10 pm but if I don’t work out tonight, I might die” buddy.

Do me a favor, and hug your standing dinner dates for me tonight. August can’t come soon enough for mine, Mexican is already calling our names.