As a junior you often make connections with the older students, the seniors, the veterans, the ones who apparently know everything about anything. You find yourself looking up to them for advice and going to them in learning situations. 

Being on an athletic team with a senior and spending all your time at games or practices with them makes them become more than just a friend. They become your family and the people you rely on to guide you through the ups and downs of high school. You spend every second with them, they begin to have a special and big piece of your heart that goes away with them as they leave you behind.

I have spent every second out of school with my closest upperclassmen friend. I have made so many great memories with her in and out of sports. She has become part of my family. My parents know if I’m out to eat it with her. 

Sitting next to the wise senior in your ap class who has experience going through all these tests and is the reason you are able to stay sane during the school week begins to tell you their plans for after college. You feel the emotions that come along with them leaving and going to Auburn for their degree. 

Thinking of who you will sit next to next year and who will you make more inside jokes with, sadness begins to creep up on you as you are imagining walking through those school doors in the morning and not seeing their face when coming into class.

When walking through the halls and seeing her face light up makes my day so much brighter and makes my day go from one to ten so quickly. She has such a way of making all stress and negative emotion I feel disappear. 

Coming into the new season of your sport without your senior leader. Having to hear someone new call out the end-of-practice team huddle chant. Becoming that senior to others that you once relied on yourself to understand how the coach wanted things to be done. 

You begin to see you are taking these responsibilities and that you are having big shoes to fill. You now walk around with this new ora around you and the only people you have to thank for it are those seniors who impacted and taught you so many things that developed you into the leader you became for the rest of the team.

Those seniors that are leaving know you care for them and learn from them but the only thing that matters to you is that you want them to know how thankful you are to have known them during their last year of high school.