1. Go to all of the last senior events.
Go watch the sunset with your classmates. Go to baccalaureate. Go to prom. You grew up with these people. They saw you fall off the swing in kindergarten and scrape your knees and fight the urge to cry in front of everybody.
They saw you with braces and side bangs and immense loneliness in middle school. They saw you fall in love in high school, and face heartache when your family member fell ill, and get into your dream college. You went through everything with them. Don’t let your last moments with them pass you by, because you don’t know when you’ll see them next.
2. Thank your friends.
Tell them thank you for braving AP Chemistry and SAT prep courses and college applications with you. Tell them thank you for being there for you when you didn’t get that officer position you desperately wanted and when the beautiful boy in your fifth period asked someone else to homecoming. Tell them you couldn’t have done any of this without them.
Tell them they shaped you irrevocably and forever, and that you are grateful to have grown up with them. And tell them that whoever is going to become their college best friends—they’re going to be luckiest people ever.
3. Take in your hometown one last time.
Because you’re never going to be here again as a high school student. Because you know this town inside and out, and it is all you have ever known. And because you sped through these roads as you tasted freedom for the first time at sixteen years old.
And you drank your first sip of cheap beer in these woods, and had your first kiss on that dock, and laughed so hard you cried with your friends at the twilight of summer in your neighborhood park. And because you will come back in three months for Thanksgiving, and the summer after your first year of college, and in fifteen years with your kids, and always feel a strange sense of sadness wash over you as it all comes back to you in a flash. Because this was and forever will be your home, no matter where you go in the future.
4. Thank your parents.
Your parents sat on the sidelines of your soccer games, in the audience of your spring musical, in the crowd of your club banquet, supporting you. They encouraged you to do your best. And they cried with you when your best finally paid off.
And they loved you unconditionally throughout it all, even when you failed that calculus test, and you snuck out when you were grounded, and even as they knew you would have to eventually leave them to chase after a far greater life.
5. Thank your teachers.
These are the people who taught you about biology and Riemann sums andthe importance of loving people. These are the people who supported you and wanted and want to see you to succeed. These are the people who saw you grow into the person you are today.
Thank them for teaching you about math and science and everything you needed to get into college. Thank them for teaching you about kindness and intentionality and everything you needed to become the person you are today.
6. Take pictures of everything.
Take pictures with your friends. And of them. You’re going to want to have them to put up in your wall at college, or to stuff in a box under your bed, alongside all your ticket stubs from school dances and the goodbye letters from your friends.
Take pictures of your dog and your mom’s smile. Take pictures of the football field at night, when it’s empty and lit up and echoing the cheers of your class from the past fall. Because memories do fade, and you’re going to want to remember everything.
7. Don't be afraid to care.
Don't be afraid to be sentimental. Don't be afraid to care. This was a time in your life when everything mattered. And that's a wonderful thing.
8. Don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid of what's ahead of you. I know you’re scared to leave everything you have ever known, but what is ahead of you is going to be better than anything you have ever dreamed, I promise.Everything you have ever wanted is waiting for you.
9. Know that you will never be here again.
These bleachers have seen you decked out in your school colors, bursting with adrenaline on those cold September nights. These walls have seen you break down and cry at the C you got on that pre-calc test sophomore year.
The next time you are in these halls, you will have made new friends and have had new experiences and discovered new passions, and you will not be the same. You will never be here again, and this is both the most liberating and heart-shattering truth you will ever come to realize.
10. Leave your mark.
Take that permanent marker and put your initials down on the bleachers, the wall by your locker, the abandoned bookcase in your school library. Commemorate your time here. Because it did not last forever, but your initials on that bookcase, and your legacy, and your name passed around as a memory in the halls, will.
