When you’re young you either have best friends or you don’t. There’s no in-between. These friends are quickly interchangeable – forget to pick me in PE for your dodge-ball team and you’re not my friend anymore. Offer me your Fruit Roll-Up and you can be my new best friend.

Even in high school, when you fancy yourself “grown up,” you cut friends out of your life just as swiftly. It’s only when you venture out into the big bad scary world that you realize the true value of friendship, and reflect on your past-pal-pettiness with slight embarrassment and regret.

I had a lot of people come in and out of my life throughout my school years, and there were just as many I didn’t let in at all. I grew up in the pre-technology times, and since the advent of Facebook in the last few years, I’ve reconnected with more than 100 of my former middle and high school classmates. I wonder if the same will be true of today’s generation – since they’re already connected on Facebook, will they later add kids from their school years after never giving them the time of day?

But I digress… friends in adulthood take on a new dynamic. For me, my “core group” of friends are like family. They offer support and fun and unconditional love. In many ways I feel almost flattered that these amazing people would voluntarily give me such love – they’re not family or bound to me by blood, but rather they chose to love me. What’s better than that?

Then there are your “girls,” the dear girlfriends you’ve made at jobs, school, or through others, and they’re the outgoing gang of ladies you love to get together with for dinners and birthdays and nights out on the town. There’s the wild one, the funny one, the organizer, the one who loves to dance, the one who’s always late, and the generous one, and they each bring a special dynamic to the group and they each bring something you love about them.

And finally you have your besties, those select girlfriends who are your sisters, the ones you share history with and can always pick up right where you left off, no matter what the circumstances or how much time has passed. They’re your rocks, the first people you call to tell you’re engaged or you’re pregnant, and the ones you share your bestest bests and worstest worsts.

The friend equation as a child is a simple “first come first served” ideology, but when you’re a grown-up, it becomes this group dynamic that is layered and varied, with different people from all walks and phases of life, each with a specific role to play. And given they each fulfill a particular niche my in life (and my heart), they are all special, and I am grateful for each and every friend I am lucky and blessed enough to have.