The second semester of your senior year is probably the most highly anticipated few months of your life so far. Prom, graduation, college decisions, and so many lasts. This is supposed to be the best few months of your life. This is the end of an era, the end of your entire life as you know it. This is the last time your routine will be routine. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret: this semester is stressful. And exciting. And sad. And fun. And not as fun as you thought it would be. There are a lot of expectations for this semester to be amazing and wonderful and worst of all, perfect. So as you go into this exciting/sad/fun/not-as-fun-as-you-thought time of your life, I want you to remember a few things.

It’s okay to change your plan, or not have one at all.

We do this weird thing where we expect 17 year olds to have a plan for the next four years of their life, and like 40 years beyond that. It’s okay to have an undecided major. It's okay to cry because you don't know what to do or where to go or what type of person you want to be in 20 years. It’s okay not to decide on a college until exactly May 1^st, and even to transfer if you made the wrong decision. It’s perfectly fine to answer with “I don’t really know yet”, when adults ask you about your career after college or whether or not you want to go to graduate school. Truthfully, even the people with plans don’t really know yet.

You might feel distant from your friends.

This makes sense. You’re all going in different directions next year, so your attention might not be on each other. I’m still super close to some of the people I felt distant from during senior year. Some of them, I barely talk to. It’s fine. You’re growing up. You might realize that the only reason you’re friends with someone is because you’re with them seven hours a day, five days a week. That’s okay. You’re not the only one to experience that.

Take advantage of all the lame high school things.

Pep rallies are lame. It’s true. But dressing up for a theme and screaming in a gym with the people you’ve spent 13 years of your life with is FUN. And even if you don’t think so, it’s one of those things that is only part of your life for a short time. Maybe you don’t like themes, but hey, your marching band might just be good, or the boys on your school’s basketball team might just be cute, and you might just have fun anyway.

Prom is a mess.

This is universally known. You will spend way too much time planning it (you’ve probably already started, despite the fact that it’s four months away), and way too much time envisioning all the perfect, beautiful moments that won’t happen. That being said, enjoy it. Dance with your friends, spend too much money on extravagant things, wear something that makes you feel like runway model (this goes for all genders. Boys, how often do you get to wear a tux? The ladies can’t be the only good looking ones at prom). You’ll realize how insignificant it is in about a year, but right now, it’s okay to make it The Biggest Event Ever. Just don’t lose any friendships over it.

It’s almost over.

I can promise you that it won’t hit you until very late in the game. You might think that you know, but it hasn’t actually hit you that it’s almost over. Your childhood life is coming to an end. That’s okay, because it’s life. But do me a favor, and take advantage of a few things: your mom’s cooking, having a washing machine that less than 200 other people use, having your own room, being able to see your high school friends every day. College will be millions of times better than this coming semester, but there are things you’ll miss. You’ll be ready for high school to be over soon, but you’re not really done with it until you’re wearing a graduation cap. Enjoy it until then.