To Those Who Are Graduating

We walk through our school halls to the last classes being held thinking about all the memories you’ve gained from the last 4 years.

We know the good byes are going to happen and we get sentimental because of it. You sit in your chair and think about the people in your class. The first day you met them and realize this will be the last time you see most of them.

We look at the whiteboard one more time remembering our first day and how it became our new reality. Now a chapter in our lives is going to close and there’s no stopping it.

This is a time to think about the tests you conquered, the new friends you made, the teachers that inspired you, the laughter you shared, the tears you felt. The finish line is here.

This is a celebration of the countless nights with too much caffeine intake. To those who worked from their books ignoring how tired they felt into the morning. The ones who dived headfirst into their life problems. Those who didn’t feel like they could but did.

Time is going faster than it should. We go through our list of things we wanted to do during our time. Some of us have finished what they wanted, while some have barely done half. There also things that happened that weren’t for seen. They were not what we wanted to do, but they helped us become the person we are today.

We are not the same people as we were on the first day, and we’re still changing.

We may have done things that we aren’t proud of, but they changed us too. Even if it was difficult, we survived it. We are different, in the way we think, speak, and act. We are the end result of all our choices wether they be right or wrong. We have transitioned to different versions of ourselves and we’re at the best ones yet.

We had hearts broken, tears pouring out as we go to sleep.

We sometimes still remember it haunting us, but we persevere. We’re just a small spot in our lives to the real world, where pencils can be weapons and classrooms can be battlefields.

But there was more than academia criteria than just being a student. It’s more about thriving than surviving. It is all about having discipline rather than just following rules and doing as you’re told. The learning skills rather than writing down the right answer, the ones you were with rather than lost.

It all goes down to the people we were with the most. You’ll miss your friends which may or may not have been your first friends on day one, but they made your journey more impactful. There are friends you wished you met earlier, the ones who made everything better. We’re forced to go our separate ways as we can no longer spend all the time seeing them every day. But we get to look back on the memories you had with them.

We are all going our separate ways. Maybe one us will get that dream job. Maybe one us will just accept any job that comes along. Maybe some of us will go traveling for a long time. Maybe some of us will still be with the ones they love. Maybe some of us will stay in our lives.

There’s so many options out there and every single one is a life changing decision.

It’s not going to be the same after graduation. It’s an opportunity to start over. As we become older, the stakes also get higher. It’ll probably a few years after graduation does it really feel like you’ve grown up.

Life has no written rules. It does not come with a handbook saying what we should be doing by age 25, 35, 50, etc. We all have our time frames. We’ll feel lost at some times. We will encounter difficult moments. We will feel trapped by our choices sooner or later, but we will accept that and overcome it. We will win the battles.

Goodbyes can be scary. And they are in a way. It’s because we’re never fully prepared for what comes next. Only to be brave for it.

We can be a lot of things at one time, be strong willed, to soft hearted, to cautious to confident. As we exit a stage of our lives, we must remember who we are today, what we will become and where we want to be. Life will be an oxymoron in that theres a lot of grey areas and there’s a lot of tragic beautiful things out there.

And remember it’ll eventually turn out ok because every mistake up to this point as been a learning lesson. There are second chances and fresh starts. It is possible.

Congratulations to those who graduated. You did it.

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