Do you ever wish you could freeze moments and just live them for longer than just a few minutes or seconds? I sure felt like that last week when my best friend and I were in the car together, our favorite folk band playing, singing like we were the only two people alive, and making airwaves out the windows. Glorious moments like that deserve to be frozen and they deserve to be lived over and over and over again.

Unfortunately, my best friend is a senior this year, and cap and gown madness has started, scholarships have to be filled out, prom dresses must be purchased, and (unfortunately) goodbyes must be addressed. Because I am a junior this year, I know that I won’t be able to see her every day at school, when she is in college, sleeping in libraries and doing her absolute best to acquire good grades. While not only my best friend will be gone, all of my other friends will be gone, as well.

I’ve always been the kid that plays with older people because I believe myself to be more mature than my age. However, I have never had to say goodbye to so many people. Some are attending college out of state, while others are deciding their career paths based on studying at UNLV, but regardless, those faces are the ones I will no longer see on campus every day, whether it be for a short hello or a heated conversation.

Since the very beginning of my junior year, I promised myself that I would use the 180 days of the school year to become happy with myself, and become accustomed to being in my lonesome. I even (and don’t laugh) made my anthem Rob Thomas’ “Lonely No More” and I catch myself singing it every now and then, whether I am feeling lonely or not.

Of course, these are very dire measures that I have decided to take to convince myself that I will need to cope without my senior friends, but at the end of the day, I have to focus on my studies and scholarships, just like my friends focused on theirs. Who says my best friend and I won’t have any more “capture this moment” times?

As much as I hate to admit it, this is yet another rite of passage in my life. Saying goodbye to loved ones that are taking their life to new measures can only mean that my life is advancing just as smoothly. I had to say goodbye to my hometown, and move to a whole different continent. I had to say goodbye to a whole life when I moved here, and I think that I can do it again, loneliness not included. Rob Thomas, you were wrong. The “lover at my door” is my future awaiting; not another heartache on my list.