When I look back on my life this past year, I find myself troubled with thinking of just one significant moment that changed my life. However, if I truly have to single out one unforgettable memory from this year, I would say that my life took a toll for the worst when I was hit with the realization that my best friend was going off to college in the fall. In that moment in time, I became dormant. My pulse beat through my veins so fast that I could automatically feel the cold roaring river of blood shoot like a rocket through my veins. My world in an instant was unreachable, and gravity, that once glued my feet to the floor, vanished. Throughout the course of this year, my life changed drastically when I realized my days were numbered with seeing my best friend before he goes to college for the new school year.

Upon realizing that I would be entering the next stages of my life, I fell into a panic. If all I have ever known was the pain of my stomach from churning when I laughed, and the sweet creases that have been made permanent on my face from smiling so big, then how does anyone expect me to move on? Not once being excited about my senior year, I fell under the curse that led me to thinking that I was leaving for college with him and the class of 2014. I mean had I not spent his entire senior year with him, profusely sweating into a pool of
excitement at the senior Holy Cross foot ball games? Was not that me who shinned with profound exuberance when he received his senior ring? Then that must also had not been me who danced the night away at his Senior Prom right beside him. I had lived through his senior year and now it was almost time for him to leave and for me to continue to inhabit another stressful school year, alone. I will tell you that in that moment of realization, I wanted to be anyone else but the girl who had to say goodbye to a friend; her best friend. Now and then I continue to feel my heart painfully breaking, as his name permanently etches itself into the biggest part of my heart. However, no amount of burning sensation will ever top the feelings that I had been ambushed with in that undesirable moment. Have you ever experienced the feeling when you think someone is watching you, or when you are so nervous that you make your stomach flip?

Your desire for any sort of food is gone, and all you can do is hold your stomach and hope for the best. Well, in that moment, I learned what it was like to be in a narrow hole ten feet in the ground. I could not remember how to breath, and then, everything began to fade into nothing. I dropped my face into my hands as the tears held by the unstable dam bellowed out. The unwanted waters unleashed, and the truth behind the drought swallowed up my heart. The pool began to form, and my lungs began to burn from the lack of oxygen in my
inhabited black hole. All there was to do to stay alive was to swim up to the light and stop the crying. I then began to realize that even though my friend is leaving, he is still in my life, and he is still in my heart and mind. Why should I give up my life in painful sorrow when my love is not lost? He is still a part of who I am, and giving up hope would mean giving up on my happiness.

Yes, my senior year will be stressful, and yes I will break down at times, but in my mind I know that I can pull through it and survive my senior year without him there.

Throughout my junior year, the most life-changing moment is when I realized that my best friend was going off to college in the fall. No amount of pain that I have ever felt has truly impacted me more then that moment. Stepping out of my comfort zone and into reality is incredibly difficult, however, I know that I am going to have to live without him for a year whether I want to or not. The most memorable moment this school year is when I realized I had to learn how to survive my senior year without my best friend.