It’s watching your older siblings grow up. Watching them go through high school. Seeing every friendship and relationship they have. Listening to their stories. Being there for their accomplishments. Learning from them.

Then suddenly it’s you. You’re in high school, doing the things they used to. It isn’t what you expected.

Then you’re dropping your siblings off at a dorm, and unpacking their things. You can’t wait to being treated like the only child and have the house to yourself. You think you won’t miss them, but you do. The house is so much more quiet than it used to be. There’s no longer anyone to talk to on the other side of the wall.

Then you’re taking road trips to go see them. It feels like forever until you’ll be there. College seems to be so far away.

Then you’re halfway through high school. Two more years. Two years and you’ll be cheering in the student section at your last home football game, laughing with your favorite teachers for the last time, driving around with your friends on a Friday night, the people you’ve grown up with in the town you’ve always called home.

Two more years of going to that one gas station down the street, watching the sunset outside your bedroom window, local coffee shops, and knowing your way around. Two more years until your last assembly and school dance.

You think you’ll never make it through high school. But then you’re walking across the stage to receive your diploma. You end up making it after all.

Then it’s you who’s packing things into cardboard boxes. You’re in college. Then you’re declaring your major. Then starting a new career.

I think being the youngest puts everything into perspective and makes you realize how fast time goes. It will seem to go slowly until you blink and you’re in a dorm room, no longer living at the house you watched your older siblings grow up in, and you really won’t realize what you have until it’s gone.