One of the truest things that I have ever heard is when people say, “the next four years are going to fly by.”

When I look back at my freshman year, it seems like it was so far away; yet, in an instant I’m already a senior staring down my last few days at Antioch Community High School and all the memories that come with that time. It all feels so surreal that in a few days I’ll be done with high school and in a week I will have officially graduated.

Each year we go through school, followed by a few months of summer break, and then back to school we go—in the same town, with the same friends surrounding us. Until now. For many of us, we’re not going to return to the same town surrounded by the same friends when the summer ends. For the past 13 years, I’ve been stuck in the mindset that after summer ends I will go right back to the same place I go every year. I go back to the comfort of my town and my school, only to wait countdown again until the summer day I get out and to do it all over again. It’s hard to wrap my head around that something I’ve been doing the majority of my life is going to change, and at the end of the summer I won’t be going back to the comfort of being a Sequoit–one of the most significant things I looked forward to as a kid.

I remember observing the high school kids at all the football games, dreaming of the day when I would be following in their footsteps by putting on that cardinal jersey and grey helmet and playing for my town as my heroes did on that field before me. It’s crazy to think that soon I won’t be on the field; instead, I’ll be on that sideline as an alumnus, supporting the team that shaped me, and watching the kids who had a dream much like the one I had when I was their age.

Time is comfortable because it’s controllable. Much like time, football was something comfortable to me; it was with me for a big part of my life and something I could control. But now, as others may experience, that comfort has come to an end. Although it may seem scary not to have that comfort around, it is always something that will be a part of you from having been a part of it.

Now, instead looking forward to becoming a Sequoit, I look back at how it made me who I am today as I start the new beginning to my life. In the end, the most important thing is we are who we are because of our experiences, whether how positive or negative they may be. Of all those experiences—people, places, things, ideas—there are those core moments that will forever make us the best version of ourselves. And for me, I will forever be grateful for them.