I have been missing these girls so badly that it HURTS. I certainly miss them all the time, but for some reason lately it's like I would do anything to have my front door fly open and one of them walk through (because we never knocked) and need to borrow a necklace or want to go to Target or on a walk or need to vent about the mailman or the weather or need help with something for work/school or need back-up on a mission to stalk a boy (TOTALLY used to do this). Or I'd love to fly through any of their old doors, but I don't know the people who live in their old places. So that would be weird.
We are trying SO HARD to plan a trip for all of us. But I am in NC, Beth is in DC, Katie and Allison are both in Tennessee, Cath is in Georgia and Ash, for crying out loud, lives in Wyoming. So yeah, it's a little hard and it is making. me. sad. that it isn't any easier to get us all in one place. Spring is trying so hard to pop up and stick around here, and it makes me so badly want to sit out in the grass with these girls like we used to do and talk about nothing and everything all at once.
Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, we can make something work soon. These girls are proof positive of God so very purposefully dropping 6 random people in one neighborhood and making forever friends out of them (that sounds like some mix of the "Real World" intro and a Hallmark card, doesn't it?) But it's the truth. I know that wherever we are the funny emails and occasional visits will always happen and always make us feel loved and leave us with happy hearts.
I love you girls. I will see you SOON one way or another!
When I was growing up I always wondered what it would have been like to have had an older brother. I think things like this are normal to think about - you wonder about a "what if" and wonder about things that didn't end up being your specific reality. What if I had been good at sports but not creative? What if we had lived in California and not NC? So, that same wondering happened regarding sibling life: I have one, younger sister, so I wondered what it would have been like to have an older brother. 
Lucky for me I have never believed that family strictly means blood-related. Because if you ask me, I pretty much got 3 big brothers out of these dear boys. They're all just enough older than me to be way protective of me but not too much older to not be some of my very favorite, very dearest, closest friends.
I love that they open doors for me and pull out chairs for me and know what to order me to drink if I'm late (which I never am, but you know, just in case). I can tell their moods from 2 words on the phone and from the second they walk in the door. I love that my parents treat them like sons and that they treat my mom and dad like another set of parents.
They have taught me how I deserve to be treated, and right after my dad, they are the reasons that I have such high standards for guys. They have allowed me to see with my own two eyes strong, honest, Godly men. I have seared into my memory a night that they were all at my apartment in college, and we sat in the floor of my bedroom while they told me how much they adored me and that they would never let someone who wasn't good enough pass by them to get to me. 
They would absolutely drop everything and come running for me if I needed them (and believe me, they have), and I would do the same for them without hesitation. We have laughed together in fun and cried together in pain. 
