Growing up and growing apart. Going to different schools and making new friends. This happens to nearly everyone as they and their best friends since the beginning go to different high schools, different colleges, and move to new states. Although meeting new people and branching out is one of the more exciting things about growing up, it is always important to stay true to the peeps who rode bikes Uptown with you to 7/11, who lied to their parents with you about meeting up with boys at parks, who bought matching “I Love Boobies” bracelets, and who still liked you when your mouth was full of metal and your glasses were rimless and tacky.

Those people have really seen you at your worst and have chosen to accept the person you were and the person you have become. So, to the day ones, this is for you.

Whether you end up in the same high school or college as your best friends does not matter, they will always be your best friends. Although they might not truly understand your frustration with your new pre-calc teacher or know the boy who screwed you over, they will listen and care and let you rant to them on the phone for hours. They will listen to you cry when your “friends” at school didn’t invite you to dinner on Friday and then hours later will invite you to dinner with them and their friends because making you happy is the only thing on their mind. They will surprise you at your homecoming pictures and take the thousands pictures of you and your date without rolling their eyes just so you have one that is Instagram-worthy. They will drop whatever they are doing on their Friday night when they a call from you at a party sobbing in a closet and will pick you up (with your favorite McDonald’s order in hand, obviously).

Separating from your day one BFFs in college is even harder than going to a different high school than them. You aren’t able to run to your best friend’s house to borrow that one top you know looks great on you and you can’t call them to pick you up when you’re sad and lonely at a party where you know no one. Although you will make new friends at school who you can vent to when you’re sad, dance with when you’re happy, and eat insane amounts of pizza with, it is the random 3 a.m. car rides blasting your favorite 2000s’ rap songs that you will miss the most. It is those warm summer nights sitting on the corner of your street talking about all of the lame things you did in grade school that you will miss the most. It is the five-day sleepovers at each other’s houses eating cookie dough and watching "Magic Mike" that you will miss the most.

So, to MY day ones, thank you for loving me when I had braces, when I wore Justice way too far into eighth grade, and for always having my back. You have been there for me through the good, the bad, and the ugly and will be there for me for the rest of the good, bad, and ugly things that I will encounter in my life. The stupid things we have done (*cough, cough* stair sledding), the inside jokes we have made, and the funny fights we have gotten into, I will hold with me forever. Thanks for the best nineteen years and I can’t wait for the many more to come.

To my best friends, my chicas, my mamacitas, my bridesmaids, I FRIGGIN' LOVE YOU!

Cheers,

Carolyn