To the high school senior weeks away from graduation,

Stop.

Just take a moment to look back on all of the things you're used to, all of the things you consider your norm, and all the things you grew up knowing life would be.

Take a drive at sunset and look at the town you call home. Reminisce in all of it –that shop you used to get frozen yogurt with friends or that pizza shop where you went on that date with that guy.

Go past your elementary school. Swing on the swings and hide under that playset you used to call a fortress.

Visit the place you called “home" –your friend's house, the band room, the gymnasium. Any place you truly felt like yourself.

I ask you to do these things before it's too late. Yes, it is actually possible to be too late.

Do those things before everything you've ever know changes. Do those things before you leave. Do those things because one day you'll come home and you won't recognize a thing.

That favorite fro-yo shop you and your friends went to –closed. That playground you used to love –removed. That big oak tree outside of your back door –chopped into pieces, fallen from a storm.

Now, these things may seem meaningless to some, but they are part of our familiarity. Our sense of how life was.

It's a simple concept, yet it's difficult to grasp once you're away from home.

The concept: life goes on, even when you're not there.

It won't hit you as soon as you think, but when it does, it hits hard. It hit me when I Facetimed my parents and they showed me my room. It felt like my brain had glitched; it didn't understand why I could see my room, yet I wasn't there in person to see it.

This glitch is called your reality check. You don't ever ask for it, but you always need it.

The same thing occurs when you come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It happens when the whole family gathers and they see you “post-high school" and now as a “new college kid." They say, “wow, you've changed so much!" but you look the same. They say, “you're so much more aware of everything now –it's incredible!" but you really haven't; you've just been looking outside of a dorm window instead of your house's window.

Why does everyone see you differently, yet you feel completely unchanged?

The answer: your reality check hasn't happened yet.

You haven't begun to realize the dark half-crescent shaped shadows under your eyes from lack of sleep. You haven't seen your sudden weight gain (or weight loss, for some). You haven't seen how differently you interact with people here than you did before you departed.

And just like that, all that change occurs and there's no time to realize it. Until it's too late.

So realize these things now. Soak up the norm and live the life you may call “ordinarily boring." Because one day, it won't be. And you'll have no idea why.

And so, I leave you almost-graduate with this: stop and smile.

Look back on all you've lived through and all you've accomplished. Look at all the memories of you growing up. Remember, reminisce, and embrace your childhood for a little while longer, before it all disappears.

When you wake up on graduation day and you look in the mirror, fully dressed in cap and gown, smile.

Because you've made it to the end of part one, and now you've reached the beginning of part two.

This is your new norm.

Signed gratefully yours,

The Kid Who Wishes She Had