So, all of your friends are graduating.

Well, most of them at least. It seems like all of the forces of Earth are working against you to repel you from the life you knew and loved and leaving you alone, a mere junior, sophomore, freshman, what have you. It happens to the best of us, and while maybe some would give the straightforward advice of “just don’t befriend seniors,” it’s impossible. Our seniors are people too, and they may just be the best people you’ve met and will ever meet! So just how do you deal with the weight of watching your best friends walk away in a cap and gown into apparent oblivion while you are expected to plow through the rest of your high school career?

1. Cry. Do it. Right now. What, there’s people around you? They don’t matter. Unless they’re in the midst of a love affair with Medusa, it’s almost a guarantee you they are not made of stone and they feel emotions too. They’ll probably understand you, or even try to console you, and if they don’t, just continue on disregarding them. So go ahead and weep from period A1 continuously through B4. The worst thing you can do is forget this is happening and bottle up your feelings, only for them to come to a front a good thirty years later.
2. Take a day off. This should only be viewed as a last resort if tip #1 doesn’t do anything for you, or if you’re really not comfortable with the possibility of breaking down in public. It probably wouldn’t be recommended to do this on a day you have a big test or presentation that would hurt your grade, but there are some benefits too. If you know you’ll have a class where you need to use a computer someday that week, log in before you leave, because it might just be at the “Welcome” screen by the time you come back. In fact, you might even get more work done when you’re not in an environment that reminds you of what you’ve lost.
3. Channel it. Find an output for all of your emotions. It could be writing, it could be art, it could be punching holes in walls (a frighteningly common piece of advice here on the Bellarion.) Do whatever you must, and who knows, something great could come from it.
4. Remember what you still have. Is everything out of your system now? No? That’s fine. Optimal, even — now is the time to reflect on everyone you know. These could be people in your graduating class, these could be people a bit younger than you, these could even be important teachers you’ve had. Remember that these people still care about you and will be there to help you feel less abandoned after graduation.
5. Do something new. With the school year coming to close, it’s both the worst and best time to try this. If you haven’t done so yet, try getting a summer job to keep you busy. Apply for an officer position in a club that you’ve been interested in these past few years, or even just make plans to simply join as a member next year. There’s really no better way to move on from the past than to literally do so. Which kind of ties into the fact that…
6. Next year still exists. Next year, there will be more people in the school. There will be old people in the school you’ve just never spoken to before, and you will have new classes. You can and you will find new opportunities, even if you don’t really try.
7. Keep in touch. There has been no better time in history to do this. If you’re really close friends with these seniors, it’s basically guaranteed you will see them on a pretty regular basis all summer. What happens after they move in? Make sure you have all of their numbers. Create a Skype chat or something if you haven’t done that yet. There’s an app called Voxer that basically acts as a walkie-talkie, so you can have real-time conversations with them even when you’re not quite in the time or place to start a full blown call. Also, there’s always breaks. Even if your best friends have gone somewhere hundreds or thousands of miles away for college, you will see them again, more often than you think.
8. Don’t be bitter about it. It’s in your nature to be envious. How dare everyone leave you behind while you rot away in your cinderblock prison? How dare they celebrate and be celebrated while you run your pens dry and grind your pencils down to nothing on finals? If they could take you with them, they probably would. You’ve seen them over the course of the years; they’ve been just as stressed as you are now, even more so at times. They’ve earned this. Their time in high school is up, and yours will be soon enough. Remember that, and make the best of the time that’s left. It’s all easier said than done, of course, and don’t fool yourself into thinking any of this is going to be super easy, but at least have the thought in the back of your mind that it isn’t going to be the end of the world, either. To quote Modest Mouse, “even when things get heavy, we’ll all float on.”