some thoughts on graduating

it is 10:10pm as i begin writing this, just over an hour since we all chucked our caps in the air at graduation. in an ideal world graduation would be some kind of epic ceremony — woo! accomplishment! happiness! celebration of everything in the past and everything that is to come!

but i just got home after the sky had gone completely dark, after running from eagle bank arena to the car under a rumbling thunderstorm, clutching in my gown a diploma i’ve slaved too long over to let touch a single raindrop. i’m not even attending angp, so i’m just hunched over my desk at home typing away on a laptop, but everything still seems a tiny bit surreal. school has become so deeply ingrained within me that i still feel like i’ll groggily wake up monday morning after sleeping through 50 alarms and pass out in the back of the bus while riding to the building i’ve spent many of my waking hours in for the past four years.

i think i expected more finality out of today than i actually received. graduation in a nutshell was the following: waiting an ungodly amount of time to be let into the arena, waiting in the tunnels to be herded in like a bunch of cattle, and waiting even longer during the “walk across the stage” part to actually hold my diploma in my hands. (being at the end of the alphabet is a good time.) even though many of the people around me i saw for the last time in my life, even though all the speeches discussed our legacy and our accomplishments and our potential in this massive world, i didn’t have any sudden moment of “wow i’m done with high school” crash down upon me.

to be fair, during graduation i just wanted the whole affair to be over. and after graduation i was too busy trying to find my family while scuttling through a dense river of sheer crowd mass to care about anything. but i think that the concept behind “graduation” hasn’t taken place just in the past few hours, but instead over the course of the entire year. mr. foreman said to the tjmc seniors last august that this year would be full of lasts — the last homecoming, the last performances, the last prom — so we needed to cherish everything while we still could.

and so that’s exactly what i did. i’ve spent the last year of my high school career wholeheartedly throwing myself into everything i’ve wanted to do. my last tjmc competition was paid a visit by incumbent weather, but the ensuing emotional huddles under pouring rain i’ll remember for the rest of my life. my last experiences with the drama department have been humbling; it’s crazy to see the amount of effort put into each production, from stage directing to hammering the sets together and everything in between, so i’ve loved supporting them from the piano during their performances. my first and last senior prom was a night to remember for multiple reasons, but the event was characterized by all of us “dancing” on the dance floor (read: jumping up and down, not even to the beat), enjoying each other’s company at one of the final major celebrations of high school.

as i’ve said goodbye to various people at banquets and senior nights and whatnot, each such event has constituted a bit of “graduation” to me: reflecting on my memories with everyone, thanking them for teaching me something else about myself, and moving on to the next phase of life with them in my heart. what i’ll take away from tj is not the fact that i went to one of the “top” high schools in the nation, but rather the fact that every person i’ve grown to know over the years has shaped me in one way or another. i’ve learned to walk through life with my head up tall, to believe in the fact that things will work out in the end, to unapologetically love the friends i hold close because despite the best of ideals, i won’t have forever and a day to spend with them.

tomorrow will probably just be another sunday. i’ll wake up at 10am having slept in for more time than i would’ve ever dared to during the school year and go about my day as per usual. i’m sure angp will be one hell of an emotional ride for the 350 or so people attending, but it’s just a period of seven hours capping off an entire four years of trying times and happily carefree moments alike. at the risk of sounding cliché, tj has been a single chapter in the story of our lives on this planet. all we’ve done tonight is turn over the last page and move on to the next.

2018, it’s been so real. thank you for everything.