Freshman year is a new world for everyone. There really isn't anything or anyone who can fully prepare you for the trials and tribulations that you will overcome in this stage of your life.

For me, the changes that I would come to know weren't just in the fact that I was moving away from home for the first time, but also due to my decision in choosing a school where I knew no one. Considering I grew up in a typical small town where everyone knew everything and everyone, this was more of a change than I could have even began to wrap my mind around.

I'm not sure if it was the fact that the small town feel that I was so used to was completely lost in the lanes of traffic and endless amounts of people or if I began to let the newness overcome me but either way, living in a big city was just another change that I underestimated.

When you find yourself in the position of loneliness, nowhere and no one to turn to, and over four hours from home, it's you against the world... or at least it feels that way.

Until

You find your home, the one thing that is consistent in a college kid's world of inconsistency, and the people that ultimately become your family.

With all of that being said, this is a letter to "my girls" that I met my freshman year.

Whether it was the girl I met on my first day of classes that I was kind of awkwardly forced to sit next to, the girl I just so happened to be randomly assigned to room with for orientation (that I swore could not be more opposite of me), or the girl I met while I was brushing my teeth in the community bathrooms on the first week of school, God has a crazy way of placing you right where you need to be at the exact time you need to be there.

No matter the situation, these are the girls that make me look back on my freshman year and reassure me that deciding against the idea to transfer was the best decision I made this year.

Maybe it was the way Hollin pep talked me as I bawled in the middle of a coffee shop. Maybe it was how Tague and Delaney forced me to hold back my tears when my hair for my very first sorority formal looked like literal crap. Or maybe it was when Megan invited me to dinner with her family - at the time, she may not have known but that sense of home and family was exactly what I needed that night.

It's situations like this that really open my eyes to the unconditional, genuine relationships that I have made this year. Without a doubt, had I gone to a school where I was surrounded with friends I had known my whole life, I would not have been exposed to the ladies who I now not only call my best friends, but also my family, my "home away from home", and my rock.

So, to "my girls" that I've met this year, thank you for welcoming me as I am (sass and all), for showing me the true definition of unconditional friendship, for telling me like it is, for being on my side (even when I'm wrong), for listening to my endless rants, and for being everything I never knew I needed.

You sure do know how to make a girl feel loved.