Dear Current High School Seniors,

This is your last year. Your last year in high school. Your last year surrounded by your favorite teachers and closest friends. And your last year at home surrounded by those who love you. Cherish this year, make it successful, and make it one to remember. This is a year of many "lasts."

You'll walk into school on the first day of school wearing the outfit that you picked out weeks ago, purchased on a shopping trip you took with, most likely, your mom, aunt, grandma, or cousins. As you walk in, you’ll greet all the friends that you didn't get to hang out with other the summer and talk about all the amazing trips you went on. Soon the bell will start ringing and you'll be off to your first period class of the first day of your last year in high school- you're finally a senior!

Once you get to your first-period class, you'll realize that you have the teacher that you've seen since freshman year, but have never had. They'll pass out the syllabus that will list every rule that everyone will break at some point. After this, they'll tell you about your first homework assignment- the one that will set the tone of your senior year. By the end of the semester, you'll find out that this teacher, the one you thought you'd hate, is the one that you have the most appreciation for. You will have a teacher like this. They will be one that will encourage you to come in every day. You'll find yourself wanting to know more about Charles Dickens or why it's important to know the periodic table or why we have to know how to solve a quadratic equation (because we're really going to use that in life, right?). These are the last classes with your favorite teachers teaching things that you now think are unnecessary.

Now it's the middle of your first semester of your senior year and you and your friends are concerned about who is going to ask you to homecoming and what you're going to do for spirit week. This will be your last spirit week and last homecoming (unless the college you go to has one)- make it count, make sure you remember it. Even if no one asks you to homecoming, don't stress, you can do something else. Or you can go with your closest group of friends! Still don't want to spend all that money? Then have a movie night a home, have a fancy dinner, or have a sleep over- do something with your closest friends. These are the nights that you'll want to remember and cherish when you're sitting in your dorm room studying or missing home in just a few short months. After homecoming comes thanksgiving break. This break will be your last weeklong break to eat all the turkey and stuffing you want to. Help your dad cut the turkey, help your grandma make the pumpkin pie, help your siblings with a project for school. Just help in any way you can because the next thanksgiving break you have, you'll most likely be studying for finals. This is the year of your last homecoming, spirit week, and thanksgiving break with family.

Flash-forward a month or so and you're studying for your first-semester final exams. You've given your guidance councilor and your teachers a list of all your accomplishments for them to write you stellar recommendation letters that your future college will look at - now you're really heading towards the stressful times of your last semester (and a couple of months) in high school. Once you finish your final exams, you will run so fast out to your car, trying to get away from what you and your friends may just call the halls of hell. During winter break, you'll relax, visit with family, spend lots of time with your friends, and spend a ton of time with Netflix (most likely catching up the Grey's Anatomy or watching Gossip Girl, like I did). This is your last winter break and it should be filled with laughter, joy, and many memories.

Once you get back from winter break, the halls will be buzzing with conversations about what exotic location your boyfriend may have visited, what type of car your best friends parents gifted her, and how the popular girl got into a twitter beef with some girl who knows nothing about the other life (a story that is sure to take more than a lunch break to explain or show the screenshots). Whatever the conversations are everyone will be busy talking - conversations will be flowing out of every classroom, the lunchroom, and even restrooms. During your homeroom, you'll then be given the schedule of your last semester of high school. Looking at your schedule you realize that you've got a free block and could leave early if you really wanted to - you'll end up wanting to leave early because sooner or later you'll catch the senioritis bug. As you get to the first class on your new schedule, your teacher will go through another syllabus that you've seen a million times. After this class is the class that you have with your favorite teacher and you know that all is well in the world - maybe these halls aren't so hell-like after all. This is the beginning of your last semester of high school.

Time passes and you and your best friends are soon finding out which colleges you were accepted into and whether or not any of you received scholarships. Most likely, you'll all be going to separate colleges and will be having many face time dates, but you'll cross that bridge when you get there. Before you find out whether or not you go accepted to your dream school, you will be very nervous and probably freak out thinking that the teacher you thought was your favorite wrote you the worst recommendation letter and now you won't get into college - this is not or never will be the case, they all want to see you succeed. You've just have had the last of many freak-outs before you actually walk onto campus of your dreams. You'll find out that you got into that college and you will be more excited then you were when you were told that you could get your braces off a week early. This will also be the last of many exciting moments that you'll share with your family before you head to college. These are the last of the late night freak outs and the addition of more exciting moments to come into your future.

Spring comes around and this is your last spring break. Your parents have planned an exciting family vacation. You cannot wait for this trip and you know that you'll have the best time. You'll make memories and you'll take so many pictures that you can't pick just one to post on Instagram. Once you get home, you'll spend the remaining days with your best friends and you'll gossip about your adventures and what you may have missed while you were out of town. This is how your last spring break surrounded by those who love and care about you.

You return to school and there are announcements about pre-ordering your yearbook and reminding seniors to place your final orders for your cap and gown. This is when it hits you. This is when you realize that you're graduating and that you will never have to go through high school again. As the last few weeks of school go down, you'll have awards nights and ceremonies to recognize all the honor societies that you are now a part of. I assure you these nights and ceremonies will get boring and repetitive, so just smile and take the picture that will later end up on your mom or dad's Facebook page, with a comment congratulating you on your most recent accomplishment, saying how proud she or he is of you, and that she can't believe you'll be graduating next month. These are the last days of your high school career- the future knocking at your door.

It's the day before graduation and you're sitting in your school auditorium going over how everyone will walk across the stage and receive the piece of paper that everyone has been working on for the past four years. After this, you still won't know what you're going to go through the next day. You've picked out your graduation dress, you have your cap and gown ready, and your whole family is in town. You are ready, even if you don't think you are. This is the last night in your own bed that you aren't a high school grad.

It's graduation day, so congrats! You've made it and you still aren't quite sure what this "once in a lifetime" ceremony will actually consist of. You and your classmates will line up in alphabetical order and you'll make your way into the graduation space. You are there sitting next to a kid you may have never talked to, but thankfully one of your best friends is right behind you while another one is in the same row as you. This is the last moment of your high school career, you're almost free, you can almost taste the freedom. After everyone has walked across the stage and received their fancy piece of paper, your principal will congratulate you and your fellow classmates - some people will throw their caps in the air, while others will just be ready to leave. As you walk out of the graduation space, your teachers may line up and wait for their favorite students to walk by and wish their best wishes to you and your future. (If this opportunity arises, do not miss out on it, it's something that you will never forget.) You'll see your favorite teacher and you'll give them the biggest hug, trying to keep yourself together. You made it. You survived high school. This is the last time you will see your favorite teachers surrounded by your friends and surrounded by other teachers that you may not miss.

It's now a month after graduation and your mom is pestering you about picking out a bed spread and getting all the stuff together that you need for college. Let her pester you, you're her little girl or little boy, and she's seeing a day and time that has most likely come around all too quickly for her. It's her job to lovingly pester you. While you're busy packing for college, you'll also be busy planning the last trip to see your family and the last sleepover/movie nights with your best friends. Make these last weeks and days at home count towards something, those somethings being the memories you take with you to college. The lesson to take from this is that you should never be lonely the summer before going to college, always do something with your friends, family, or boyfriend/girlfriend. Make the time to make the memories. This is the last summer before you head off to college.

Before you know it the summer has flown by and you within the last week or so before you have to move-in to your residence hall on your college campus. In this week, you'll be busy going through clothes, going shopping for stuff for your room, and figuring out what you need to take with you and what needs to stay home - aka the last minute things. Take the things that you can't live without. Print out pictures that you took throughout the year of you and your friends. Make sure you take stuff that will make your dorm room feel like home. You are now going to college; this was the last summer before college.

As you move into your college dorm room, you'll realize that you have all new everything. You have never slept with these new bed sheets. You've never slept on the bed that's now yours. You've never slept in the same room as your roommate. You've never used the toilet that's now yours to do number one and two in (this was a big thing for me, sorry...jk I'm not sorry because, well pooping, duh!). The freshman year of college will be a year of many firsts and this will be such a refresher having just gone through one of many lasts. You can make it and you will survive. If you can survive high school, then you can survive college.

Sincerely,

One who went through a year of lasts, has lived to tell the tale of it, and loves college a lot.