With graduation just around the bend, there are three things that are bound to happen once your ceremony concludes:

1) You and your fellow graduators will put the kibosh on your high school careers by throwing your caps sky high.

2) Vitamin C’s “Graduation [Friends Forever]” jam will indeed play, drawing tears from the girls and… well, while the guys will pretend they’re not hearing it, inside they too shall sap.

3) And in that very moment, most of your peers won’t realize that only a few months sit between graduation and the beginning of college life.

So here’s some perspective for your back pocket.

Don’t believe August is a long ways away. If you thought your senior year flew by, the summer months between graduation and college will feel like 24 hours. And that’s because there aren’t any speed bumps to slow you down. No school. No homework. No practices or games. Just time that you can spend however you’d like.

On that note, spend as much time with your friends as humanly possible. Seriously. You should even try to make it annoying sometimes, because chances are, when you’re in different places come September, you’ll find yourself wishing you had just one more hour with them.

Finally, if college comes up, it’s OK to talk about it. Just don’t get lost in it. The future is definitely on its way, but, like graduation, you’ll want to stay in those summer moments as much as possible. Because once it’s gone and you and your friends aren’t in the same place anymore, you’ll long for it again.

So make sure to leave it all on the floor this summer. That way, when you start thinking about your friends from home, you’ll have plenty of memories to keep you at bay until you see ‘em again.

Congrats on your upcoming graduation! We’ll be here if you need anything once college arrives.