I pick up my phone and sit down on my bed as I open the music app. I press shuffle on my playlist and the song “Don’t Blink” by Kenny Chesney begins to play through my headphones. As I listen to the lyrics, I come to the realization that I’m now a junior in high school. 

     It feels very overwhelming when I think about growing up. I find it hard to believe that I’m now an upperclassman and will be graduating in two years. It seems as if yesterday I was walking through the school doors for the first time as a freshman. 

Our elders always told us that life goes by fast as we get older, but I didn’t believe it until now. Sixteen years of my life have already gone by. I used to dream of being a teenager in high school and having so many fun experiences. Now I’m almost seventeen, and these years I dreamed of reaching are nearing their end. 

     I remember my first day of high school, my first Friday night football game, my first high school dance, the first time meeting my friends and classmates. Soon these firsts will become lasts. My last day of high school, the last home game, my last prom, the last sleepover with my best friends. 

     I have never been very good at endings or goodbyes. I remember my last day of grade school. I walked through the halls and was flooded with the memories of the years I’d spent there. I hugged my teacher and cried. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the only school I’d ever known or the people I had spent so many years with. 

     When I graduate high school I assume I will feel similar as I did during my grade school graduation. I will not be ready to say goodbye, and not ready to leave behind my high school days or my youthful teenage years. 

     Since many grains of sand of my youth have already fallen to the bottom of my life’s hourglass, I plan to make the most of the ones that are left, and I encourage you to do the same. 

     Whether you’re a senior with only a year left of your high school career or a freshman just beginning the journey, enjoy it. Our high school years are supposed to be some of the best of our lives. These four years go by quickly so make the most of them and appreciate every moment.  As the song goes, “Don’t blink, life goes faster than you think.”