With classes well on their way to stressing the students at the University of Missouri out, I’m just amazed at the fact that it’s already almost the third week. Time really has flown by this past year and half and it makes me wonder if I’m taking full advantage of my time here.

Before I came to college, I was told that I’d make friends that would last a lifetime. I was told that there is something different when you go away to college and make your own friends, as opposed to just being friends with everyone around you in your hometown. I grew up in a tiny hometown and everyone knew everyone. I still get made fun of when I bring friends home with me from college about how short the distance is from one end of my town to the other. With that being said, even though there wasn’t a large selection of people to become friends with, because everyone knew everyone, I still had some amazing friends that I never thought I’d drift away from. After almost two years of living away from friends back home, I can say that what I heard before I came to college was completely true. I’ve made the friends of a lifetime here at Mizzou. Though I was close with friends in high school, the friends I have here are the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know what I’d do without them.

REAGAN

One of my best friends, Reagan, and I love the show “Friends.” We often joke that she’s Monica and that I’m Rachel. She’s a complete clean freak just like Monica and though she’s not quite as crazy as Monica, she’s still always the one that makes sure that everything in our apartment is neat and clean. Don’t get me wrong, I’m clean and tidy too, just not to the extent that I can’t let something sit on the counter for more than five minutes without freaking out. She’s crazy but I wouldn’t change her for the world. Reagan is always there to listen and always knows what to say to cheer me up if I’m down. She’s one of my best and closest friends and has been ever since the second week of freshman year.

CAITIE AND MANDY

To keep with the “Friends” theme, Mandy and Caitie are a combination of Phoebe. I know that doesn’t seem fair to combine them together but it fits so perfectly. Caitie and Mandy are so much the same person that it’s scary. They’re my friends that never say no to anything, they’re always there for me as support, for a laugh or to go on cross country trips to New York to see the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. These girls are crazy and wild in a perfect combination of the two. Whenever I’m with them, there’s never a dull moment and they can make me laugh hysterically with just one look. They are cooky and weird, yet lovable and kind like Phoebe.

These three girls are the greatest friends that I ever could have been blessed with. No matter what, I know that they will always be there for me for anything and everything. I love them through the good times when we’re driving through random drive-thrus and singing at the top of our lungs to the person working, and even through the bad times when we get so mad that we can barely stand to be in the same room as each other.

So, we all go perfectly together just like Monica, Rachel and Phoebe. I can’t imagine a life without my best friends.