The summer before senior year may have been the best one yet, for me at least, but it was also one of the hardest ones yet. While friendships grown throughout our time in Babylon blossomed during our “prime” high school summer, they were also held close by the reassuring, yet fleeting, security that we will be returning to the familiar Babylon High School in just a few weeks. Before this summer, we had always dreaded those first back to school ads that came on TV, the first Halloween decorations in stores, or that first crisp night where you need to grab a sweatshirt. Now, we recognize those signs of the time as comfortable. They told us that soon we would be back home with our closest friends. This summer would be the last summer of Babylon conformity. In just one more year we would all be going back to school at different times and different places. So, this summer, above all our unique adventures, we collectively held each other a little closer and maximized our fun because, whether we liked it or not, it would be our last summer that started and ended with Babylon.