It was my first summer home since being in college. As I packed my bags last May, I knew life would be different when I came home. I am different.

As my summer job, I was a cashier at the local grocery store. Every day, I would see at least one person I knew, but I always looked forward to seeing the familiar faces.

While I made small talk with high school friends as I rang up their groceries, I noticed the thickness of time. It has only been a year, but it feels like a lifetime since we threw our blue and gold caps at graduation.

We aren’t the same kids who had lined the hallways at our lockers, talking before the bell rang for class. Our once noisy group that cheered and danced at football games is now scattered.

We came back to our hometown, shining with a new aura of college, cultured and enlightened. Gone are our teen years, and here we are as adults. (We have yet to figure out adulthood, but at least we’re trying.)

Coming home and seeing those I graduated high school with was bittersweet, and it made me appreciate time.

Everyone and everything that has happened here, our home, has shaped us. Whenever we come home and see familiar faces, we are returning to the place that has made us who we are.

We are a community.

Out of all our memories, we will always remember the loss of a classmate, cheerleader and friend in 2011 that brought our school and football team together: “One star, one love, one team.”

This year, we have over 14000 signatures who petitioned for a high school art teacher to stay.

We are a community, rooted in love and compassion, that hopes for change and a better world.

Our conversations with old friends and visits to places of nostalgia remind us of where we had been, who we had been and who we now are. It is then that we see the tiny moments that have shaped us. We see our growth, and we see ourselves as new people.

As we return to college, keep in mind that this place makes and breaks us in the best ways. We see life and the world from a different vantage point. We are both challenged and picked apart, but it strengthens us and makes us wiser.

High school was a short chapter in life, and so is college. Everything that begins also ends. Let's make the most out of our time.

After we graduate college, we will wonder whether to come home or move away. I hope no matter where we are on the map, we will always remember our roots.

But, we must never lose sight of where we’re headed. Let’s open our arms wide because life is only now beginning.