A Letter to Semester Students

Dear Summit Semester class of 2018 (and all future classes),
Happy Thanksgiving!!! Today is a wonderful day! Within the walls of Snow Wolf Lodge there is more joy and laughter than ever before in the past three months. Families are united and sharing in a celebration with your new friends and people you will treasure for the rest of your life. There is also a sadness starting to spread. A realization that you are leaving soon. A year later, on Thanksgiving, my heart still aches from remembering this feeling. Thanksgiving means graduation, and graduation means leaving home and returning to the world you knew before. It isn't the same. I promise, even if everything looks the same, you have changed, and your perception of the world you once knew has changed as well.
I know the staff has prepared you well to come home, but no one tells you what it is like a year later, so that is my goal. Everyone will have different experiences, but I'm sure this ache is the same across the board. Thanksgiving next year will be hard. It feels weird. All the emotions come flooding back. The good memories, as well as the hard ones. The realization that maybe you haven't seen, or even talked to, some of the people you thought you would never loose touch with, in a year. You will remember what it feels likes to come home and how hard or weird or abnormally normal it felt. Today it feels like I just came home, not like I've been home a year. Use this feeling, these memories, and remember the things you learned. Take this time to remember what you thought you would never forget. Read through your notebook, your letters from girls (or guys) appreciation, and look through pictures. Semester may not be perfect, but it will forever be a huge part of your life. Coming home isn't just about learning how to live in your community again, but learning how to thrive every day in light of what you learning and how God has changed you. Never forget there are at least 31 people who feel exactly the same way and 12 classes before you who understand and are still feeling those same things years later.
Take time to remember. Take time to smile. Reach out to your classmates. Semester is an amazing experience that will hold with you the rest of your life. Enjoy it!
Congratulations on making it to the end of the year (and this letter)!