As the fourth quarter starts and graduation slowly creeps up at Lakeland High School, seniors start to get antsy and cannot wait to be out, but for other grades, this is not as fun of a time.
“I am excited for graduation, but it is also a little nerve-racking,” Sarah Smith said.
As most juniors have close senior friends or even siblings, this time can be hard with the realization of letting them go slowly kicking in. This applies not only to the juniors but also to the sophomores and even freshmen.
Around this time of year, students start to realize that the senior’s time here is coming to an end. This strikes a rollercoaster of emotions into friends and siblings of different grades.
The feeling of sadness, being proud of your older friend and even some of the guilt seniors feel leaving behind their younger companion.
“I am absolutely devastated because she is going to go far, and I will miss her a lot,” Harmony Williams said.
Williams and Smith have been best friends for almost two years. Williams admits that seeing Smith go will be challenging, and school will not feel the same without her next year.
“I am really sad that I only had a few more months with her because I know they will go fast,” Williams said.
While Smith is excited to get out and start her new life, the sadness of having to leave behind some of her younger friends gets her down sometimes.
This same wave affects the friends she has made along the way and makes them wish they had more time.
“Time is going so fast,” Smith said. “The days are long, but the weeks are pretty short. It feels like just yesterday we were in international cuisine together.”
Graduation is a time full of emotions, and it can run people on a train wreck of emotions throughout the night.
Seeing people that others have grown close with and watching them get ready to move on to the next part of their lives and maybe even leave everyone behind can be really hard on people.
While it is a big step forward for some seniors, the decisions may not have been as easy as they seemed.
“I was pretty stressed about my decision. There were a lot of options to consider, but I had a good idea of what I was going to do,” Smith said.
Personally, my best friend is a senior, while I am only a junior, and while she goes to a different school now already, the realization that she will leave and move on with life makes me so proud of her but also sick to my stomach. I grew up with her, and we have been there through each other’s phases of life. Knowing she starts her next without me leaves a lump in my throat.
When late-night drives and weekend hangouts turn into Facetime calls from different states and asking when the next time we will see each other again is. It makes it harder to process and move on.
This same fear and sorrow strikes many others whose friends or siblings are moving away and starting their new lives. Even for the seniors who are staying local, it is still hard to go from seeing each other at school every day to having to find free time to hang out.
Change is hard for almost everyone, and no one likes to go through it, but we must change in order to grow. So, while the seniors get ready to leave and the rest prepare for their turn, emotions rise, and changes start to show.
Graduation does not end friendships, and while the distance may be hard, it should not break a strong bond.
