1. Because the two of you have roughly a thousand pictures of you wearing matching denim skirts. And she understands how much you miss those things. Denim skirts went with everything.

2. She remembers who you had a crush on in tenth grade. She can name every person you were talking to in college. And she listens to you on the phone now when you tell her about your various escapades or lack thereof. Always giving good advice. Never judging.

3. Because she was probably the first person you ever got drunk with.

4. …”Drunk” in this case meaning you each had a couple of Mike’s Hard Lemonades and were immediately falling all over the place.

5. Because she knows that even though you’re a “grown up” now, there’s still an insecure 16-year-old within you sometimes. And she cheers you up and makes you feel better whenever that insecure 16-year-old shows up.

6. Because she was the one you experienced Mean Girls with for the very first time. And Anchorman and Wedding Crashers and John Tucker Must Die. And quoting those movies means so much more when you’re with her than it does with anyone else.

7. Because she saw you through your ugly duckling phase and knows you damn well earned the confidence you have now.

8. She still sat with you at lunch even when you showed up to school with a bad spray tan. Or a trucker hat. Or bedazzled anything. And she still talks to you now even when you’ve informed her via FaceTime that you haven’t changed out of your pajama pants for two days.

9. Because she didn’t disown you when you got home from your freshman year of college and bragged about how much of a bad-ass drinker you were.

10. She understands that you’ve come a long way from the awkwardness that was you-as-a-high-schooler. But she also knows you’re still awkward in plenty of ways. And she likes you anyway.

11. She held your hair back when you had too much Popov vodka at the Fall Out Boy concert. You held hers back when she visited you in college. And now neither one of you has to hold each other’s hair back because you’re classy as f*ck.

12. JK, you’re drinking 6 mimosas each every time you visit one another and go to brunch.

13. Because she loved it when you made her framed picture collages of the two of you for her birthday back in high school. Even though you gave her the same thing every. single. year.

14. And she still gets excited when you make those collages for her now. Even though now they’re just pic-stiches you post on Instagram.

15. When someone from your high school posts something ridiculous on Facebook or Instagram, you can screenshot it and text it to her. No explanation needed. She just gets why you’re disturbed or amused or shocked or confused.

16. …And she’s often your source of information on whether this person had a lovechild or that person got engaged or if this person has a gambling problem.

17. She knows your family so well. So any time something happens, she gets why you’re upset or stressed out or anxious. You never have to go over any complicated family history with her. She just knows.

18. Because when everyone signed your yearbook, they wrote brief, meaningless things like “H.A.G.S.” but she wrote you a full page or two about why she loves you.

19. Because whether she lives 5 minutes away or she’s now on the other side of the country, she will always be your high school bestie. You may go through periods of ups and downs in your friendship, but she was the one who was there for you when you were 15-years-old, and the one who’s still there for you now.