From the youthful curious days of preschool and Kindergarten to the stressful all-nighter worthy days of high school all conglomerates into one night of celebration. This night shared with hundreds of other fellow peers graduating and moving on to bigger and better things. The only individual aspect from this collective celebration are those 10 seconds where your name is called out immediately followed by hoots and hollers from anxious family and friends even though cheering was reprimanded earlier, and you stride across the stage shaking hands with distinct members of the school board. As all this goes on you hope and pray not to trip over your gown as the many cameras panning the entirety of the stage will catch it in an instant, and the moment ends at the very end of the stage as your grab the empty diploma folder with an enthusiastic smile that holds a greater value then the empty value-less folder you possess that caused the smile.
And it is those 10 seconds that can make or break the graduation ceremony for you. You can either take those 10 seconds as they are and collect your diploma and sit down without a thought in your mind, or you can instead ponder over all the triumphs and mistakes and sweat and tears that have allowed you to get on the stage in the first place.
As I was disappointedly expecting, many of the speeches I heard that night were a collection of graduation cliches dispersed with mere morels on individual thought. However one phrase stuck out to me that pointed out just how a graduation ceremony works and it was said by county's school district superintendent "I would love to write individual speeches for all 435 of you but that isn't possible. The great thing about humans however is that we all interpret things in different ways and so this one general speech I am delivering to you all will mean something entirely different to each and every one of you" and while he might have ruined the impact of his words by an overused analogy of graduates to fireworks which was then followed by "Fireworks" by Katy Perry playing, the words were not lost on me.
Another thing that stuck out to me was when the class president noted that, "We will all remember the nights where we spent out blood sweat and tears on projects, tests, and quizzes." I felt differently on the matter. My personal opinion is that in just a few years from now, what we will remember is the memory of that feeling of accomplishment and the feelings of stress that led us to that moment will be dim in comparison and soon fade away. I instead see this reminiscence as that of child birth as my mom explained it was for herself where once she possessed that feeling of joy the hours of labor faded away into oblivion and the pain of it cannot be recalled.
Another thing that will be remembered should I feel the need to reminisce are the cords/collars/stoles I wore and what they represented. As my principal pointed out, these colors represent nationally accredited honor societies and are recognized by alumni whom have graduated and know the significance of them. In fact, after the ceremony was over I was approached by several high school alumni who congratulated me and shared their experiences in both these clubs and the school in general. And while my mom continues to jokingly state that she will use them for her curtains, I know I will keep them both stored (away from her reach) and treasured.
Another memorable aspect of the night was the dress I wore to the event. I was offered by my mom the chance to buy a dress of my choosing, and I instead requested that she make my dress. Both for the fact that it would mean my dress would be unique and because my mother was more excited then me for my graduation (surprisingly) and wanted to be as much a part of it as possible. While I don't think I'll actually wear the formal dress anytime soon, I'll remember it and smile every time I open up my closet.
Those 10 seconds were the result of both individual motivation and collective emotional support of family, friends, and club organizations. While I might not consider myself fully independent, after those 10 seconds I thought about the moments in the past year where I showed some morsels of independence such as with my final presentation where I was cool and collected and continuously joked with my audience, a stark difference from my first presentation where my legs visibly shook. Another moment that came to mind was more recent, the senior awards ceremony where I "gracefully" tripped off the stage in front of my peers. Rather than being utterly humiliated and scampering off to the bathroom like my previously more self-conscious would have done, I instead held my head high and went to my seat and later made a post on Facebook congratulating my peers and joked at the end of the post "at least I know I left with a bang (the noise of me falling on my feet)".
While I might have to undergo another 14 years to reach my goals in the medical field, it is moments like these that remind me just how much it is worth it to endure these years for the final glorious end product.
Congradulations (notice the pun there) to my fellow Whyville graduates, and I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors.
