Dear Class of 2016,
Now I don’t know exactly what you’re feeling or exactly what’s in store for you, but I’ll try to take a stab at what I think your next year may hold. If you thought the past four years of high school have been a rollercoaster, you’re in for quite a ride as you close off your senior year and head towards your future! Emotions of excitement and yearning for freedom that you commonly express muffle your sometimes anxious and nervous thoughts. As glad as you are to leave your hometown and move on to what you think is the “real world,” you wonder if life when you come home will be the same.
To be honest, I don’t really think life will be the same. Every year your high school will have a new graduating class and when you visit your school, you probably won’t know every face in the hallway. In fact, if experiences from me and my peers serve as any insight, you probably won’t talk to all of your close friends every day or week or even month, like you’re used to. This may be a daunting thought, and I’m not here to make you sad. Instead, take advantage—take advantage of your last days of school leading up to graduation, and if you’ve already moved your tassel and thrown your hat, take advantage of your summer! Go to your favorite hometown food favorites, have a bonfire, watch movies with your friends and play board games with your family! This summer you have no worries – no studying for the SATs, no homework, and no reason to not make it your most memorable summer yet.
Before you know it, August will start rolling around and you will start getting overcome with another type of feeling – I can’t exactly describe it but it feels like everything is exaggerated – goodbyes get harder and your excitement for your future can barely be contained. If you’re moving out of your house, you have the seemingly impossible task of packing up your life into boxes, which you pray will fit in your car as you drive away from what you’ve known as home. You’ve now got a clean slate, which means you have to put yourself out there again to make friends and that is something many people haven’t really had to do since elementary school. But, coming out of your bubble is well worth it and you meet new friends, who help you get accustomed to your new life. You make sure to try to keep up with your home friends’ lives but as time goes by, it may become harder to do.
Before you know it, you’ll be on your way home for break or vacation and even if you haven’t talked to your old friends in days, even if many things in your hometown have changed, they’re still the ones who you have memories going to prom with, spending your summers with, and getting your diploma with. Thanks to current safety regulations, all roller coasters have some sort of safety harness. So if there is any advice I can give for your upcoming year, have a blast – yell while you’re on the loop-de-loops of the ride, go along for the ride – make new friends, embrace the changes and prepare for both the ups and downs. Know that even if you don’t realize that you’re wearing a safety harness, it will always be there for even if you don’t necessarily always talk to your old friends, family, and even if you hometown changes, all of these things will always be there for you and eagerly waiting your return.
Sincerely,
A Class of 2015 Graduate
