Whether you're leaving home for your freshman year of college, starting your first day at a real job or even buying your first below-average apartment, growing up is a really scary thing. You give up your sense of security with the idea that everything will be OK because there are people to take care of you. When you enter the real world, it becomes all you. You feel nervous, unprepared and somewhat excited all at the same time. And with this chaotic mess of emotions we feel, it tends to consume our minds, and we forget to take the time to thank the people who helped along the way before we leave.

1. Thank you, Mom and Dad.

Thank you for teaching me how to ride a bike. Thank you for the countless birthday parties, following whatever theme I picked that year. Thank you for all of the fun vacations and the souvenir T-shirts you knew I'd only wear twice. Thank you for never missing a sporting event, even though sometimes I was only on the bench. Thank you for always renting the movies I wanted to see, despite your lack of interest in them. Thank you for always telling me everything would be OK and then doing your best to make sure it was. Thank you for giving me the confidence I have to be my own independent person. Thank you for showing me how to carry that confidence with me every day, but to also know I am not better than others. Thank you for continuing to be the world's best parents and making me the luckiest kid. Thank you for making me the person I am today.

2. Thank you to my childhood friends.

Thank you, guys, for making the playground a time for memorable adventures and scraped-up knees. Thank you for countless hours of talking on our house phones to each other about the crushes we had that week. Thank you for going to get my mom when I fell off my bike, but not telling her it was because we were using no hands. Thank you for filling my childhood with hilarious stories and countless nights of pretending to be asleep when my parents would check on us after hours. Thank you for being some of the coolest friends I've ever had. Thank you for making me the person I am today.

3. Thank you to the friends I have now.

Thank you for showing me what it's like to have people there at all times, especially people who always make you laugh. Thank you for never leaving the room for dull moments or boring times when we were all together. Thank you for multiple crazy nights of things we probably shouldn't have been doing or at least shouldn't tell our parents about (yet). Thank you for being there for me through the losses I've gone through, the breakups and fights that weren't as big of a deal as we made them, and when my parents weren't letting me do whatever crazy idea we had that always seemed rational at the time. Thanks for being my best friends. Thank you for making me the person I am today.

4. Thank you to my community.

Thank you for always being so supportive of the teams I was on and showing up to the sporting events, which gave us more confidence than you will ever know. Thank you for all the newspaper clippings I was in that you sent to us in the mail. It made me feel like a small-town superstar in a way. Thank you for congratulating me on making the honor roll when most of the time I didn't even know I did. Thank you for coming together in hard times of need and despair, but also in times of celebration and excitement with your endless support and cheers. Thank you for making all the memories I have from home possible, even though you may have been more of a background player. Thank you for making me proud of where I come from, even though some people may not know where it is. Thank you for making me the person I am today.

5. Thank you, me.

Thank you for getting to where you are now with the help of all the wonderful people you were blessed with. Thank you for letting them in and teaching you a little something about life, even when it wasn't something you thought you needed. Thank you for screwing up countless times and learning from your mistakes (even though it might've taken a couple times). Thank you for making that joke and starting that conversation that led to one of the greatest friendships. Thank you for never giving up on yourself and knowing your potential. Thank you for dreaming, imagining and trying to take on the impossible. Thank you for falling off the path, getting a few bruises and then getting right back on. Thank you for becoming the person you are today. Good luck out there, kid.