I will never forget almost eight years ago sitting in my freshmen orientation for High School. Surrounded by my middle school clique, we were more than ready to be with the older crowd of our small little town. Out of my principals entire opening speech to our class, one statement stood out the most. “These four years will be the fastest four years of your life.” I remember glancing over to my friend group and laughing because four years at the time seemed like a lifetime from now. But the Feather wasn’t kidding.
Every Monday I prayed for Friday to come faster because we lived for cheering on our not so good football team. Our football team may not have been the best but the energy and support from the community, students and teachers was exhilarating.
Sophomore year rolled around quicker than we expected. Getting our Driver’s License was our ticket to freedom in our town. We now we're able drive to the beach without our parents dropping us off. However, the best part of this was being able to take turns driving to parties. All of the group pictures we snapped throughout the year are now just memories.
Junior year was the greatest year of them all. We now had later curfews, part-time jobs, Sandbar Sundays and most of all gaining more of our parents trust. How could we forget the Halloween Parties, Island Parties, pulling out one another from class during leadership to roam the halls, bonfire nights, bridge jumping, country concerts, day parties over summer while our parents were at work, Pare-Paloozas and watching reggae bands at the local bar in town? We all were running wild and free and didn’t realize that one day we would be looking back at pictures and Go-Pro videos of these epic times.
Our town was small and all the parents knew each other. We didn’t know what we had until it was our time to branch off to our different colleges where we would only see each other on holidays or if we took a weekend trip to visit one another. We all joined sororities and some of us became actual sisters.
Every break we all rekindle the fire and talk about these times that at the moment seemed like a normal day. I would say our town was anything but that. Sitting by the water for dinner seemed normal to us. We were all blessed with beaches five minutes from our houses and parents who were laid back.
Now as we are starting to graduate college and go our separate ways once again, we can only reminiscence on these times.
The day where one of us finally settles down with a man is when we all be living vicariously through you. We all somehow made it through college without a boyfriend and laugh because only our group would manage to do this. As we stand up for each other on the biggest day of our lives our bridal party and weddings will be one for the books. Weddings? We have to get through the bachelorette party first. Hopefully, the funnel will make it out of the hotel room alive because if not we all know it will have to be shipped back to the owner (Marina).
As we sit on one another’s back porches when we are older with our children we can only pray that they are half as reckless as we were. God bless Jensen Beach and our parents who put up with us.
