Graduation week/weekend is one of the craziest times you’ll ever experience in your life, next to maybe your wedding day. You feel obligated to talk to all of your parents friends about your plans after high school, and the school days are so painfully long you try your best to convince your parents to let you stay home.

It may not seem like it now, but regardless of your high school experience, you’ll end up feeling nostalgic looking back on your graduation. You’ll remember going to way too many graduation parties in one day (and eating cake at all of them, of course) and, you’ll remember the amazing people you met just a tad too late.

You'll remember how your school principal tried a little too hard at the end of the year pep rallies to celebrate being a senior and all the special privileges that come with it. You'll look back at your heartfelt yearbook signatures and wonder how it's even possible that you're already about to graduate.

You’re all probably sick of reading these types of posts, ones that assume that you had a flawless high school experience and that you’ll look back ever so fondly on your high school days and miss them dearly in college. It is not my intention to write an article like that. My high school experience was less than great, but even so, I recall graduation being a truly positive and memorable experience.

When your name is called and you’re walking across the stage to shake the hands of your principal and administrators, and your family is cheering from you from the stands, all of the high school memories, good and bad, will be forgotten as you walk and transition into the next part of your life. It’s hard to believe how fast it all went- and the next stage seems so scary, but only at first.

So, to the graduating class of 2017: enjoy the rest of your life, and the freedom that comes with being a graduate. Look back fondly but don’t live in the past. Stay golden, and congratulations: you did it!