My two best friends from back home have been by my side throughout a majority of my life. One of them has been with me playing animal games since we were five years old and here we are, 15 years later, helping each other through adulthood, still being a shoulder to cry on for one another. The other I met in the seventh grade when we were awkward and just couldn’t remember where all of the states went on the map in our American History class. Now, nine years later, the three of us have managed to still be the best of friends we once were when we were obsessed with One Direction and thought our biggest problem in life was that Niall didn’t get enough solos in the album.
We didn’t all go to the same college like you see in movies and TV shows. However, our friendship is so strong that we are always talking to one another, and if something important or even something meaningless happens, our group chat is always flooded with messages of love and support.
In our senior year of high school, when we were working on our high school paper, I shared that I really wanted to get a sun tattoo one day. To me, the sun was a symbol of being positive and happy and to always look on the bright side. The two of them also revealed they have always wanted suns, and each of them for their own specific meaning. We decided right then and there that one day we would get them together.
So, this past winter break of our sophomore year of college, we finally put some action into those words. We were terrified, but we were so much more excited and happy than scared, and we all got our sun tattoos. Each sun was a little different, just like us.
Now some people may think that this was silly of us; we are too young and foolish for this kind of body commitment on ourselves. But, we got this for our own reasons, and getting it together just made it that much more special. I cannot even explain how much their friendship means to me. We have been there for each other through heartaches, and prom night, and our ninth grade homecoming, and football games, and trips to Hershey, eating ice cream and watching Clueless, late night walks, playing with napkins, baking, taking photo shoots, making videos, mall trips, getting lost on Big Bear Mountain, wandering the K-Mart plaza, having Frosty’s and fries in heels and dresses, Perkins parking lot talks, playing Barbie’s, and talking about college and life like we knew what the hell we were talking about. I know without a single doubt that they will be there with me on my wedding day, and we will be there when we have our children, we will be 60 years old and knitting and we will be laughing about the crazy stuff we used to do all while still having those little suns on our bodies.
They are literally my sunshines.