Every year is always the same. There’s always a new freshman class coming in, nervous yet excited. They are excited about all the new adventures … the dances, the football games on Friday nights (even when the team gets beat by 50), the basketball games that you yell way too much at, the new love interests they think they have ’til next week. Freshman year is very important.  Meet people you had no idea were even alive, you become friends with people you never thought you would be friends. One could even say that year is¨ make or break¨ for how the rest of high school will go. Well, that’s what you think at that moment even though it’s not true. Often find yourself doing things to look good for others when in fact you just need to be you.

Then, sophomore year rolls around … they think they are grown. They are no longer being called “stupid freshmen.” Now they are the ones saying it. They feel like they are upperclassmen. they are used to being in high school, they know where most of the classes are, used to all the new people. They have big friend groups that think will never end. They get their permit or licenses so they think they are big stuff. If they’re like me they get in the first big relationship and fall in love, find themselves doing everything with them, they will change their ways for them and they start to distance themselves from friends because all they do is hang out with their new love. At the moment it’s amazing, but as people say all great things must come to an end. It’s okay because they made memories you learned things you didn’t know before. This is the last year they don’t have to worry about much.

Bam. Before you know it, guess what – you’re a junior. The first two years of high school went way too fast and you wished you would have enjoyed them a little bit more and done some things differently. You realize others’ opinions don’t matter like you thought. To me this is the most stressful year. You have more work than you have had the last few years, your worried about the SAT’s because you have heard people tell you your whole life how important they are … if you do bad you won’t be able to get into a good school, if you don’t get into a good school you won’t get a good job if you don’t get a good job you don’t have a good life. This is the year that every family member asks you what you’re doing after high school, and if you’re going to college. Yes, it’s very annoying – they don’t take  “I don’t know” as an answer. If that is what you say you get the “well you need to figure out you don’t have much time” speech. You just sit there and think I have plenty of time. I don’t need to worry.

Then you blink … and you’re a senior. Your high school journey is almost over. It feels like just yesterday you were walking around the whole school trying to find your class on your first day of high school. It’s a bittersweet moment … you spend all of the four years saying “I can’t wait ’til I’m a senior” … ’til you become a senior. You realize it went by so fast, everyone always told you it would but you never believed them. You think high school will last forever. But it doesn’t feel like no time at all. If you are like me, you think of all the things you would do differently.  High school is supposed to be the best time of your life, but as teens, we take it for granted, we have a tendency to think we’ll never have to grow up, then you become a senior. You panic because you don’t know what you want to do yet you want more time but every day you lose just a little bit more. The best advice I could give is to enjoy it, don’t take it for granted, don’t rush it, don’t let other people ruin it for you, and just relax … tomorrow is a new day. Always be the best you that you can be.