Milestones

A massive part of a teenager's coming of age journey is their graduation from high school.  For many, it signifies the beginning of them becoming independent.  If the future holds a college degree, then there are about three months standing between a new graduate and freedom.  If the future holds a direct path to a job then independence may come even sooner.  Regardless, a high school degree guarantees that you will never again be forced to appear to school at 8 am and absorb knowledge until 3 pm.  You're free baby!

I graduated just over a week ago, and let me tell you what, I can't be happier that it's over.  My senior year was a drag, but that's a whole other story.  It went slow though, guys, real slow.  But now I am officially a high school graduate.  Whoopee!

It's funny though, while I definitely had been counting down the days until graduation since about November, I feel like it wasn't such a great feat.  Not at any point in my life did anybody think I wouldn't make it.  I'm a pretty straight laced kid.  I graduated with honors, ranked 10th in my class of 163.  I managed education and extracurriculars and I've had a job since I was 15.  Both of my parents went to college, as did three of my four grandparents and my dad has a masters degree.  It was always kind of expected that I would graduate and I never did anything to cause any doubt.

So although it's a milestone that I graduated, and it was certainly an exciting event, I'm not the one who needs praise here.  I want to give a shout out to the girl in my class who had a baby last summer and has managed to come to school every day in addition to working to provide for her baby.  Way to go!  There were also two guys who graduated who I didn't think were because I hadn't seen them in school all year.  It turns out they were working full time jobs, and one of them has a child.  I don't know what kind of program they went through to get the right course credits, but they did, and I think they should be proud.  There's another kid who ran away two years ago and was completely AWOL for about four months.  He's back, he straightened himself out, and he graduated.  High five.

I don't write any of this to put these people down.  I sincerely think that they've done a great job.  It's easy to manage high school if that's the only thing you have to manage.  But when the other stuff comes along and threatens to get in the way yet you persevere anyway, that's impressive.

Class of 2013, you done good.