May 22, 1994: Advice to those Graduating from High School, Twenty Years Later

I don't remember very much about the morning of my high school graduation. I am sure I journaled it. I remember it was sunny, and I remember what I was wearing. I remember my speech and Sister J and I remember saying hello and goodbye to some of the girls after. And that was it.

I think we place so much primacy on this date at 18 because life is a little predictable before that. I mean, anything can happen. But you grow up and go to school and then turn 18 and then you can make your own decisions, carve your own path. Before that, freedom of choice is a bit limited.

I think about all of the milestones I've hit in the last two decades, with children being the one I've missed. But I've graduated from college, and then grad school. I moved to DC. I got married. I bought a house. I have traveled to Europe and Africa. I traveled to California and Texas and New York and many states in between. I got a job, and have had this one for nearly 15 years. I have three beautiful nephews on my side and two nephews (soon to be three) and a nice on the other side. I've made friends, lost some, experienced tragedy and 9/11 and lost family members, like my grandfather. But life truly began for me after May 22.

That doesn't mean that life is always smooth sailing after graduation. It isn't. No, it surely is not. Friends are always difficult, relationships are fraught with good times or bad.  You struggle with jealousy and envy and resentment and the comparison trap is fragile. You realize that the world competes heartier than it does in your high school or even your college. You realize that there is always someone more brilliant and brighter and more striking than you. Your realize you can be insulted in the most profound way, in that your essence and spark are questioned. And you doubt yourself all over again, so that teenage insecurity is laughable. You question your life goals and second guess your decisions, and you wonder "what if" beginning with the first grown up choice you make regarding college. You cry tears of betrayal and loss and frustration and fear and you experience all of those same high school emotions, magnified. You question your faith and the principles you thought grounded you.

You also experience wonder, astonishment, and happiness unlike anything else you have ever experienced. You marvel that you can build a life for yourself, you make more wonderful friends than you could have ever dreamed, and of course you may fall in love, if you are lucky. You  experience the joy of new family members, the beauty of places you have only dreamed of yourself. You open yourself up to new  and ridiculous and crazy and remarkable things, and you know that your life is unwritten. And you realize you have more resiliency, more strength, more fortitude, more grace, and more perseverance than you ever thought possible.

It makes me wonder where the next twenty years will lead. I think the pace of change slows, but if I am lucky enough to get another two decades with good health and family, I will continue to appreciate things. I mean, I hope I will still have wonderful opportunities and pleasures and adventures.

I knew that May 22, 1994 was only just the beginning. But now, as I start to move into the middle ages of my life, I truly know how much of a beginning that was. So if you are still counting down those days to high school graduation, well, it will come quickly. Life goes by too quickly. So savor every day.

High School, Two Decades Hence

Next week marks my 20 year anniversary of graduating from high school.

That used to seem like such a long time. When you're a senior, that is longer than you have been alive. And the four years after high school seem unimaginable.

I'm glad I'm divorced from that time of my life, and I really have no real strong desire to go back if there's a reunion. There is a curiosity, but of course, that both killed the cat and Facebook ate it. So there's that.

So funny because I know from FB that two girls from elementary school are visiting DC right now. They could only be a few blocks away.

Those days seem like a lifetime ago, and truly they are. The disaster of prom, the baccalaureate mass, my speech, taking a few pictures. I was so shocked when I started college and so many people, especially my roommate, peppered their dorm rooms with pictures of friends from high school. I panicked because I really had nothing. So I stuck some up, to cover it up and not appear too weird.

It took about 18 months until I really felt in a groove post-HS. Those days are so tough, and whatever small amounts of happiness exist are so fleeting. But for so many, it's a happy time.

High school graduation seems less like an accomplishment to me than a given. Of course, everyone graduates. High school is a much larger milestone.

But nevertheless, I will be thinking about those days in May 1994 quite a bit over the next week. I'll think about the 18 year old that I was, how ready I was to break out of Michigan, how naive I was to think that graduation was a cure all and life would really begin again in August. And how I already would have regrets, about college and my social life and how I wanted to fit in. When I really should have just treated being myself as vindication for survival.

So if any 18 year old reads these words, know that this is just one day, and one stop, and one milestone. It's not everything. It's a pause to remember that so much more is to come in life, and disappointments at prom and at 18 are not everything. It's not what movies and TV shows build up to be. But it's something to celebrate, because you have survived this far. That is happiness.

Sweet Valley High Syndrome

I came across this piece through a link from a link. It's about how the idealized, model-ific Wakefield twins ruined her conception of high school-hood. I'm the same age as the author, though of course, no older sister for me. I also had a weakness for the serialized book series, i.e. the Little House books. So yeah, more to relate to.

My high school, obviously, was nothing like Sweet Valley High. And I was not a beautiful size six, blond hair, blue eyed goddess who might have been a model. I didn't have boys chasing after me, and I didn't have a niche of friends in high school. Though with my impending 20th reunion coming up, and after having seen Julie this summer, high school and what could have been, should have been is a conception that stays with me. And everything it might have been that was not, and thankfully, was not.