As the end of the year approaches, senioritis is real. All you really want is to walk across that stage, receive your diploma and get away from the town you've always known, right?

That was me last year, wishing away my last few months of high school, more than ready for the next chapter of my life. But I am here to tell you, don't do what I did, don't wish it away.

The end of high school may seem unimportant due to what you have lying ahead, whether it be college, work or military. Instead of focusing on the moment, it is easy during this time to look to the near future and wish it to come sooner.

This exciting chapter will come when it is supposed to, but living in the moment during your final months walking the same halls that you have been walking since freshman year is just as important.

Realize all your “lasts."

They may not seem like such a big deal now, but trust me, when you are hundreds of miles from home you'll reminisce. You'll think of your last class with your childhood best friend, last time walking the halls, last sports event, last pep rally, last school dance, last day of high school ever. All these things seem like such a given during the time, but once you move on from it, you can't ever go back.

Let yourself get lost in the nostalgia of it all, enjoy time with your friends when they are still a five-minute drive away. Go to all your favorite hometown stops, whether it be that field just on the outskirts of town where the stars shine brighter than ever, the turf where ultimate Frisbee league might as well have been the NFL or the rink you first learned to ice skate on. Enjoy it all, visit these places often.

Because this I can promise: on graduation day, you're going to look around and wonder how it came so quick.

You're going to have a moment where you wish you could relive your high school best moments with the people you have known since you were five.

I was one of the ones who could not wait to get out, to move onto college and in my opinion at the time, onto “bigger and better things". But I find myself often wishing I could go back… back to the times my best friend picked me up every morning at 7:12 a.m. without fail, when I spent every second of senior year with best friends making memories I'll never forget, when I lived home with my family and when everything I'd ever known surrounded me.

The next chapter will come soon enough as “Graduation is an exciting time, it's both an ending and a beginning, it's warm memories of the past and big dreams for the future."

My final advice is this: embrace what you have right now, in these moments and be awakened by all the future will hold.

Photo by Charles DeLoye on Unsplash