The night before school I always curl up in bed and stare up at my ceiling, scared that if I close my eyes now, it will already be morning. I think about what I know of myself and what I know of school years and how they generally go, and as I try to grip onto the last bit of summer, I imagine what the next grade will hold:

1. There will be nights when you stay up until 2am doing homework

Yes, it will be dreadful. And sometimes it’s because it’s tech week for drama club and you also have a history test the next day, but most of the time it’s because you procrastinated and didn’t plan accordingly. Luckily, the dead of night study sessions have thinned as you seem to learn (mostly) of their pain, but be prepared to binge watch a show on Netflix, and then write a paper on what a mitochondria is, while chugging Diet Coke in order to stay awake.

2. You will oversleep

There will be mornings after 2am homework sessions, and despite your best efforts (okay, minimal efforts), you sleep past your alarm. Then it will be 10 minutes until school starts and you’ll swish mouthwash around and put on deodorant and throw on clothes, and inevitably forget whatever it was that kept you up the night before.

3. You will fail

I’m trying to be better with failing. I used have this idea that if I failed, I wasn’t good enough and it would make me just want to give up. But, you will fail. If you don’t fail, you aren’t pushing yourself. Learn from your failures. Let them encourage you to try harder next time, and rise up to the challenge.

4. You will surprise yourself

You will rise up to the challenge, and you will ace a hard test and you will get assignments done early and you will find new interests.

5. There will be tears

I am a stress crier. And there will be stress. And you will feel stuck. And you will feel like you are drowning, but you always are able to get through whatever obstacle is in your way. Plus, you are blessed with an awesome support system that is always there to help you when you need it.

6. There will be happy tears

Maybe you are delirious from the tiredness and everything that is going on around you, but in moments that everything just seems to be going right for once, you will take a step back and suddenly appreciate everything being just as it should be.

7. You will lose friends that aren’t in your classes

It happens. Don’t kill yourself over it, people drift in and out of your life, and you have to let people go.

8. You will make new friends

You will have a class where you sit next to someone and think, “I wonder why I’ve never been friends with this person?”

9. You will grow up

You will look back at the beginning of the year and think how naïve and ignorant you were. You will change. You will form new beliefs and opinions. As long as you keep an open mind, you will mature and develop your perceptions on the world and become more independent.

10. Sometimes, you will feel on top of the world

When surprising good news finds it way to you or when you got the job or you get into a college or finish a project, you will, and should, feel awesome. This doesn’t last long. Soon the thing that made you feel euphoric at first will become your new normal, so treasure the moment.

11. You have to keep on going

When you hit rock bottom, you can’t stay there. You have to pick yourself up from your bootstraps and carry on. Start again, hit refresh, put it out of your mind, and try once more.

12. It’s a fresh start

Your grades are a clean slate. Your binders are filled with fresh paper, and your backpack is stuffed with unopened pencils and pens. This is your chance to leave behind your past mistakes and failures, and try to learn from them for the new year.

13. In the end, it will all work out

Somehow, on the last day of school, it will all become a blur. All of the ups and downs smudge together, and what you will remember most is the ways in which you have grown and the people that were beside you the whole time.

Good luck to everyone this year!