Graduation

When our first graduation was rained out on Tuesday, I felt the excitement drain. Graduation was supposed to be a singlular, continuous adredaline rush of freedom and responsibility. A wave of sorrow and celebratory joy should have roared behind the procession. As we heard our names shouted across the stadium, the wave should have crashed on our skulls, crushing our emotional and expressive capacities. We should have sniffed at the commencement speeches, screamed for the valecdictorian, and bawled as the floodlights and fireworks burst forth.

But this did not happen, except for the screaming for our valecdictorian.

Instead, the clouds broke open at 6:50 pm, and the rain poured. Our cardboard caps sagged into our mop-like heads. We galoshed through turf and rocks. We desperately tried to protect the essentials - our phones and underwear. Then we took some selfies, and my math teachers made fun of me.

On Wednesday night, I constantly readjusted my dress and smiled as brightly as I could to everyone that mattered. When I was too shy to do more than fumble with my tassle, my teachers waved and smiled anyway. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed. Graduation was not a big deal. 787 people from Naperville North were walking in identical formations, shaking the same three hands. The ceremony occured annually, nationally. There are few American 18 year olds who do not experience the gowns' breeze. But this existential crisis did not matter when we exchanged knowing looks and wholehearted hugs.

A lot of things don't matter when a body of 1600 plus people send students off to the military. Knowing exactly what kind of cliche content that the commencement speakers would present did not make their speeches any less relevant or well-written. Losing all the feeling in my extremeties did nothing to stop my face from stretching between laughter and shouts.

High school is over. The times 6:50, 7:39, 8:35, until 3:10 no longer mean anything. Every structure that math team and senior parking rush hour created is gone. Nothing obligates me to run before or after classes; nothing puts intellectual progress on my desk. When we threw our caps, we threw 18 years of other adults trying very, very hard to mold us into sustainable people. Maybe that's why our teachers smiled - not just because they felt happy for us, like they do for all of their previous students, but because they see the crease they left in our broken clay jars of bodies. And maybe, just maybe, we smiled because as much as they have mattered to us, we also have each left one of thousands of scratches in their hardened vessels.

At my worst, classes had always been a little, annoying saving grace. They kept me awake and open, and often, they spoon fed me knowledge until I swallowed it whole and spit up B- results. We had to constantly interact with people that would have been uncomplicated shadows otherwise. Math team gave me no choice but to get back up again the next morning.

But this is not available to me anymore. The temptation to give up is greatest before you are about to succeed, and now, there isn't a net to catch me when I give up. The next time I visit North, I'll be recognized as a guest. I'll be a graduate, someone who has experienced it all. Call me prideful but I would rather present myself as someone who has chosen a non-destructive path. So I need to stop giving up, because I do have a choice. I can choose between destroying and building myself. It is high fucking time to start doing the latter.