Only fifteen days left until every activity I participate in will start with “last.” This will be my last high school summer. I’ll have my last first day of school in August. My last homecoming in October. My last everything, and in only fifteen days. 

At the end of my junior year, it’s hard not to look back on my prior years at FHC. Despite time seeming to go at a sloth’s pace every day, week, month, and year, it has this strange way of catching up to you. I actually have this distinct memory of thinking to myself in kindergarten, one day, I’m going to be so old. I’m going to be in third grade.

Well, kindergarten me, you will be awed to learn that not only have you completed third grade, you are now only fifteen days away from becoming a senior in high school. As in, the last grade before you graduate and go to college. 

I’m with you, kindergarten me; I’m amazed, too. 

Every single year, more kids graduate from high school. Every year, those seniors face the reality that it really is the last time they will ever walk through the same hallways that they have been walking through since their first day as a freshman. 

Every year, the senior class is faced with this truth. And, before today, I never thought twice about it. Because so what? Why is graduating so special? That’s just what happens when you’re in twelfth grade. 

But now, I’m the senior. And now, I know why graduating is so significant. 

It’s more than just saying goodbye to the school building that you hate and the uncomfortable desks that you’re forced to sit in all day. It’s more than not having to wake up at 6:30 a.m. each morning. 

Graduating is also saying goodbye to your friends that you’ve had since elementary school. It’s moving away from your family, and maybe it’s just a few hours from home, but it could also be across the country. In short, it’s saying goodbye to practically everything that is your life while you’re in high school. 

And, yes, I have one more year until I truly have to face these truths. Yet, I can’t seem to stop thinking about them, especially as I watch the current seniors leave, on their way to face their own truths. 

I’ll be honest, I’m not going to miss the school part of high school; I won’t even miss some of the people, most of whom I’ve never really gotten to know anyway despite the years of going to school together. But, I will miss this town, my friends, my family, and the life that I built before I was in my final year of high school.