By Rebecca Fowler
Staff Writer

I often write about traditions.  Call me sentimental, but I just love the familiarity and comfort of routine.  As a senior, however, I am growing slightly nervous over the fact that I will be dropping everything and moving to Abilene Christian University—three hours from Coppell—in just six months.

In a way, though, it’s also exciting.  Because although I will be leaving traditions behind, I look forward to beginning new ones that might last into my adulthood.

I will miss watching American Idol and The Bachelor with my family and critiquing the shows as if we are experts.  I will miss driving to church on Sunday mornings with my sister as we sing to the radio and stuff donuts down our throats at the last minute.  I will miss begging my parents to take us out to lunch on Sunday afternoons, as my sister and I have done since we could speak.

Though I will be back for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, I will not get to experience the extensive prep before both holidays.  Every year, I have helped decorate the inside of our house for Christmas, and I have always been present when we selected the perfect Christmas tree.  Next year, however, I will come home to a house that is already decked-out in green and red, stockings, angels and lights.

Not only will I be taken away from the “big” traditions, but I will also miss the less-significant ones.  I am beginning to savor the sweet moments of just sitting around talking and laughing with my friends—some of the most fun and truly effortless moments of my life—because I know I won’t get to experience them much after August.

Seniors always say to “enjoy it while it lasts,” and though I have always disregarded the advice, I now realize the truth of the seemingly cliché statement.   I am beginning to grasp how important it is to relish and remember all the big and small things that you get to experience in your youth—and specifically in high school.

This last semester of school, I am attempting to appreciate the small traditions that I have grown accustomed to over the years, realizing even simple events like being with my friends and family members on their birthdays will be different after graduation.

And though it will in some ways be a bitter parting, I know it will also be very sweet.  I am looking forward to forming new traditions in college, maybe having Movie Fridays, baking chocolate chip cookies before finals or painting my face for football games.  I let my imagination roam.  I look forward and hope to develop different routines and experience new “collegiate” habits that will further define me as the adult I will be when I graduate.

Because that’s life, isn’t it?

I know it is not healthy to stay complacently happy in the traditions and routines I now experience, because without leaving them behind I can never move forward and reach all the goals I want to accomplish.  Just as we advance from crawling to walking, from elementary to high school, it is part of our design to leave behind our childhood customs and form new ones that are truly ours—not our parents’.

So I will resolve to enjoy the traditions I encounter over the remaining months and look forward to future routines with excitement.

And then I’ll just go with the flow.