Extension of my brain: Five Years of Friendship with my TWIN

I have a twin, but we're not related. We're also almost complete opposites of each other but practically the same all at once. We're "twins" because we have the same nickname. I think it was Allie who decided on calling each other Twin. It's gotten to the point that it's almost strange to call each other "Allie/Aly." Even her mom calls me Twin, which I laughed at the first time it happened. She is my best friend, my bodyguard, my confidant, my encourager, my discourager, my give-it-to-me-as-straight-and-blunt-as-you-can go-to girl. She's pretty awesome. And the most awesome thing about her is that she's chosen to make ME the same for her. I've always believed that friends are the family that you choose. I have several girlfriends like her but she's my closest that I've known the longest. It's my true belief that my best girlfriends became that because if we had been born sisters, our parents would have pulled their hair out with all the shenanigans.

Allie and I met five years ago at a PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) mini-conference that my school's chapter was hosting. We connected on Facebook after that and kept in touch. That summer, I went to Italy for my summer abroad and she was one of maybe 5 friends from school that kept in touch with me. It's not that I lacked friends that summer, but it was nice to have a new friend who made the effort across time zones and distance. I'm not even sure when we crossed from acquaintances to friends to best friends. We confided in each other through the rest of college, navigated graduation, and vented about the oh so wonderful job market that greeted us upon our release from college. I worked in San Francisco, going from internship to internship and she got a job with a minor league team. When that didn't pan out, I drove my SUV out to her and helped her move back. It was an adventure to say the least.

Four years on, she asked me to be her maid of honor and I did a happy dance while she laughed at me (we were on Skype). Helping her with her wedding and planning her bachelorette brought us even closer. Her wedding was absolutely amazing and I was so happy for her as she married the love of her life. He's an incredible guy and I know he loves her with all his heart, which is more than I could ask for. We talk on a nearly daily basis and I'm so incredibly lucky to call her my friend and my twin. We're the type of friends who can talk all the time about nothing, go for long stretches without seeing each other and jump back into it when we do see each other. I can't imagine life without her.

Here's to many more years of friendship, all the ups and downs we will endure, one more wedding (mine....at some point), honorary aunties, and eventually being old girlfriends with grey hair who still go to baseball games and cat call the cute players in those fantastic uniforms ;).