When you have friends that are older than you, the only time it ever sucks is when graduation is looming. This year, sadly, I have four really good friends that are graduating. Up until now, it has not really hit me. obviously, I have started making plans for next year for things that don't include them such as housing and even planning out my course schedule for next semester.

Both of those things, however, are not earth-shaking. There are never many conversations about next year and about how they are absent. It hasn't felt real...until now.

I was talking to one of my friends named Kelsey who is a senior and will be moving to New York City in June about just how much of the semester we have left after spring break and that's when it hit me. Up until spring break, I have been able to push my friends' departures to the back of my mind but once we come back to school, there are only five short weeks until graduation.

I can no longer think of their departure as something that is far off and not a pressing issue because it is now. It is something I have to start thinking about.

As much as I wish I could copy and paste this year on to next year, I know I cant. Change is inevitable and despite me not thinking about it, its still going to happen. As I'm slowly coming to that realization I'm finding everything that we do together has an added sense of finality.

Three of my six best friends are going to graduate so as we move toward that we are going to have our series of last's and final moments.

Knowing this, I have been able to prepare my self in a sense. As we are making plans to move toward graduation I am really making a point to savor our last moments as friends doing life together.

They have been one of my biggest sources of community this year and have made my junior year of college what it has been so far. Losing them is going to be a huge adjustment but I am so so thankful for my two other friends are going to be in town next year.

I am not a person that deals with change well and I'm sure that this change is going to be a hard adjustment. As we go through the last five weeks of the semester I am going to spend every last minute with my friends and I'm sure that there are going to be (more) tears and a new dynamic of life that I will have to adjust to but in the words of Thomas Rhett, "Life changes."

Planes, trains, and automobiles exist for a reason so I know this is not the last time I am going to see them despite the fact that we won't live minutes from one another.