Let me start by saying that I have been out of high school for roughly six months. I was always that person who couldn’t wait to get out of school, to leave, to start a completely new life far away from the one I’d led so far. Well, now that it’s all said and done, I’d like to give you the little bits and pieces of advice from the very bottom of my heart.

Go to every single football game. Pay for that ridiculously, over-priced ticket, hot dog, and soda. Paint your face in your school colors. Scream at the top of your lungs even if you’re in the last quarter and down by 28. It’s all totally worth it. If you don’t like football, go to every basketball, baseball, soccer, lacrosse game. Go to every school play, band concert, piano recital, or absolutely whatever it is that you are into. Go to every pep rally, senior class meeting, prom, gradbash, homecoming, and Sadie Hawkins dance. You will regret not going.

Stop skipping that class even though your teacher looks like Roz from Monster’s Inc and even though those fifty minutes feel like a hundred years. She means well and you will miss her. (Probably not as much, but you will nonetheless)

Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, ever, at all…. Slack off on your school work. Do your freakin’ homework! In college, you will have no choice, you will be drowning in it, and you will cry. I know it sucks, but you better get used to it because if you don’t, you will struggle.

Get ready. If you think life is hard now, you have no idea what’s in store for you. It’s not going to be as easy to maintain a social life, a job, and your school work. I know it's cliché- but “adulting” is real, and it is hard. I hope you like ramen noodles and cafeteria food because it’s going to become a part of your regular diet.

The last piece of advice I have for you is the most important lesson I have learned thus far:

Don’t take your friends for granted. Don’t take for granted having sleepovers every weekend. Don’t take for granted singing High School Musical in the parking lot at seven in the morning. Hold their hands a little longer, hug them a little tighter, and tell them you love them a little more often. Now, I’m not going to say that once you graduate you will never see or speak to each other again, but the chances of you all going to the same college or in the same area isn’t likely. You all are going to grow and change and start leading your own life as individuals and adults. You are all going to learn new things about yourself, things you weren’t able to realize while you were in high school. You might even find that you guys really don’t have anything in common at all. That isn’t something you should worry about right now, though. Just don’t take the little moments and memories that you have with them for granted. Try your hardest not to fight over things that don’t matter. You no longer have all the time in the world with them. You will miss them, but you will be happy for them and you need to encourage all of their future endeavors.

Soak in every last second of what you have left in that little small town high school, they are the moments you will remember for the rest of your life.