When our mom sent us off to Kindergarten, what was one of the first things she told us as we were getting on the bus? Besides “Make sure you eat your lunch!” or “Have a great day!”

She told us, “Make some friends.”

Do you remember your first day of middle school?

Oh, the glory days. Those completely uncomfortable days where your body is starting to change and you could not feel more awkward in your own skin.

What was one of the first things your mom told you as you were getting on the bus for your first day of middle school?

She told us, “Make some friends.”

Of course, the main difference between meeting friends in elementary school and middle school is in elementary school we were more tempted to go reach out and make friends with people that you may never have talked to before. We were friendlier and never judgmental. We accepted everybody for who they were.

Middle school was the time where everybody broke their own rules and started to change the way they made friends. We were a little stricter on who we hung around and never went a week without having problems with somebody. It is okay to admit it, we left our middle school self behind, and they don’t have to see we are talking about them.

Freshman year comes around and life is starting to change. Maybe you came into high school with the same friends you left middle school with. Maybe you have all new friends. Life is all about exploring and testing the waters and even if that means leaving people behind and bringing new people in, that is OK too.

Senior year arrived, my last year of high school, and as I was getting ready to get in the car and drive to school my mom told me, “Enjoy this year. Make friends you can look back on and thank for making your life better.”

I really had not thought about those words too often. I had a couple of best friends and floated back and forth in between friend groups and sort of just had a bunch of really good friends.

I had some of my final classes I will ever take in high school with some of those really good friends, and some with a couple of my best friends. I never really thought about us coming together and becoming one big group, and surviving this last year of high school together.

But one night those words she told me started to haunt me. I knew that my life was not complete because I was not living my senior year right.

So eventually this group came together and started to become one, living this last year of high school together.

We talked about our futures and watched each other get accepted into college. We told each other about our final days as high schoolers. We cried to each other when our times as athletes came to an end. We roamed the halls together when we should have probably been in class. We watched as our lives changed, but we did it together.

Then the day came. The biggest day of our lives yet: Graduation.

Walking into the hallway where all of the people I watched grow up with, I looked around the room. I saw the people I met in elementary school, the friends my non-judgmental self made. I saw the friends my more judgmental self made, but the friends that meant more to me seeing was the friend group that was created senior year. All of us were in our caps and gowns and realizing that our lives will forever change, but I like to think of it as this:

If my mom had never given me that advice throughout my life to go out and make friends, I never would have met the ones in my life now. They say life is all about choices, and I am glad I chose to let my mom’s advice change the way I lived my senior year.

It is now a little over a year later since I started senior year, and although I do not get to see those seven girls everyday like I used to, there is something I never got to thank them for.

Thank you for bringing my life more joy than I could ever ask for.

Thank you for making me feel accepted and having security in knowing I always have an army behind me when things get rough.

Thank you for making that last year of high school one I can look back on and be so thankful I got to spend it with some of the most amazing people I have ever met.

Thank you for talking me into living my mom’s advice. I still get to hear her say “I told you so.”

They have raised the bar pretty high now when it comes to meeting new friends in college, because nobody will ever compare to the seven of you. Although we are all in different places and our lives are changing before us, my love for each one of you stays the same.

So my advice for anybody reading this is this: Listen to your mom when she tells you to go out and make friends. Never limit the amount of friends you can have in your life. Without her advice, I would have never opened my life up to some of the most amazing people in the world, and how lucky am I for that?

So here is to the ones that helped me get through that final year of high school, this one is for you.

Thank you for changing my life.