It's your senior year of high school. Your excitement is running high at the thought of graduation. You can't wait to show off your college acceptance letter to all your friends on Instagram. It feels like these last three years have gone by so slow. All your life you've been saying "I can't wait to be a senior" because then you'll finally be on top. Now you're finally here. But I ask this of you: seniors, don't take this last year for granted.

I was the same way you were. I was excited that I was finally a senior and considered the one on top. I couldn't wait until graduation and even had a calendar counting down the days on my phone. I remember getting so excited when I got my first acceptance letter. I felt that I had finally accomplished something. I was so excited to leave a place that, at the time, I thought had no meaning to me. I was ready to make my own life and do things my way, the way I had wanted to for so long. I was wrong.

Leaving high school meant I was leaving the days of no responsibility and carefree fun behind me. Like the Friday Night Lights and tailgating before the game. Leaving high school meant that one day soon I would have to leave the tiny town I called home and go off on my own. I would no longer have a warm, home-cooked meals waiting for me when I came home from a long day of schoolwork and sports. It meant that I would have to say goodbye to friends and family that I loved dearly. It meant that I was growing up.

So yes, I get that you're excited about the future and I want you to be. But my message to you is that you don't get so focused on the future that you forget about the present. The present is now and the future does not exist yet. Don't get too excited about growing up. I want you to go to every event if you can, and hang out with your friends as much as possible. I want you to enjoy your last bit of no responsibilities and carefree fun. Be wild (but not too wild), crazy, and free. This next year will go by faster than you know it.

Because whether you know it or not, in the end, you'll come to miss that small high school in a little town you called home.