If you're like me, there are multiple people in your life that you consider to be your best friend. I have about nine of them, and they are all amazing for different reasons. However, there has always been one best friend in particular. The best friend who is there from the time you meet until the day you die. The best friend who can literally walk into your house, grab food and start watching TV and no one cares. The best friend that has always been more of a sibling than a friend. This person, for me, is the lovely human being known as Ashton Shayer.

Ashton came into my life when I was 6 years old. I went to the local grocery store with my mom one morning, and I saw Ashton with a group of girl scouts outside selling cookies. My mom stopped and chatted with the leader (Ashton’s mom), and asked me if I wanted to join. I said "yes' and it was the beginning of a beautiful thing. Ashton and I actually hated each other at first. We always used to bicker over dumb stuff, and I guess we just generally didn’t like each other. Over the next few years, though, we started to spend so much time together that our families became super close and so did we. I started to trust her and I felt she was the only person that truly understood me. She was really the first person I ever opened up to. I told her all of my secrets, my fears, and all I ever got back was love and support. I started spending more time at her house than my own. We did literally everything together. Girl Scouts, cheerleading, choir, Special Olympics. We were basically attached at the hip. Her parents treated me like one of their own, and my parents did the same for her. My parents let her come with us on vacation to Lake George one year when we were 12, and her mom took us both to West Virginia for a family trip that same year. I think that was the first time I realized Ashton filled the space in my heart that had always been missing: a sister. Ashton and I both grew up with just brothers, so we just got each other. We both had a weird sense of humor and the same perspective on the world. For the first time, I felt that I had someone who understood my every feeling and thought. Ashton liked virtually EVERYTHING that I did. She's the only person that would go to cheer practice with me then scream "What's a Krabby Patty? BOIIYOINNNNNGG!!!!" She even supported every dumb thing I ever said or wanted to do. I once wanted to start a crazy makeup day at school and she willingly let me draw eyeliner doodles all over her face until a teacher told us to wash it off. I once wanted to do her makeup at my house just for fun and she let me throw glitter all over her face that didn’t wash off for a week. She made me feel so validated. While every other girl I knew at that time just wanted to sit around and talk about Hillary Duff, Ashton was always willing to be my funny, weird partner in crime. We have been there for each other through everything. Our first breakups, first jobs, going to college. We even took our driver’s test on the same day.

When I went away to college, I feared our friendship would be doomed. She went away to a state university while I traveled two hours north to Boston. The first year at college was very scary for me but we managed to Skype and talk on the phone pretty often, which made it easier. My sophomore year of college is where things started to get a little rough. I had finally made friends at school and stopped coming home as often. I met a guy and was very busy finishing up my first degree. I then got my heart broken, by said guy, and became distant from a lot of people. I started hiding in my dorm at school more often and stopped communicating with people as often. I didn’t want to be a person. I knew I was hurting Ashton but my own pain masked my ability to feel for others and I just let it slip away. We didn’t talk for a few years and I had never felt so lost. I felt as if a part of me had died. Like someone took my heart and froze it. I would still see her and we would be fine, but it was never like what it was before. I started to recognize my anxiety and depression and I knew I had to take it upon myself to fix everything. I held the future of our friendship in my hands. I started to come home and visit more and made the people in my life more of a priority. Long story short, after seeing Ashton at a family event, I texted her and told her I was sorry and she did the same. I guess we were both at fault for what happened, though it was never intentional on either side. I helped her get through her breakup at the time, and she made me feel alive again. Even though this time apart was terrible, I think it was important for us. We had spent our whole lives with each other, it was time for us to find who we were as separate people. Ashton needed to find who Ashton was, and Stephanie needed to find who Stephanie was. I like to compare this point in our friendship to Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) in Superbad when they are planning for college.

Seth: Alright, let's stop this and just go get some dessert.

Evan: No, I can't. I gotta... go meet my counselor, I'm picking out my classes for next year.

Seth: ...what? So I gotta sit here and eat my dessert alone like I'm fuckin' Steven Glansberg?

*points at Steven Glansberg eating pudding alone while staring off into nothingness*

Evan: I guess... yeah... I mean, what do you want me to do?

We spent every second hanging out, that's when it was time to grow up and be on our own, we had to find a way to stay best friends without seeing each other as often. The first time we didn't see each other for over a month or so I felt like I was eating dessert alone like fuckin' Stephen Glansberg. However, once we got past that, I had never been so grateful to have her in my life at that point. What was the point of 14 years of friendship if I was just going to let someone who meant so much to me just leave? I regret those years we had apart, but it built us a strong foundation. We both grew and experienced life on our own during that time, which ended up being for the better. She went and got her hairdressing license and became an AMAZING hair stylist (seriously check out: shayer_styles01 on Instagram) and I was finishing up my senior year of college, ready to pursue my career as well.

Even though what we both had to go through was terrible, we have a stronger bond now than ever before. Not every childhood friendship can stand the test of time, but I am so lucky ours did. I look forward to our future of weddings, kids and living our lives full of happiness and love. We may have our differences from time to time, but there is no else in this world I would rather have be my goofy, weird, lovable, absolutely beautiful best friend, who I consider family.