Countdown to College: A Meditation On Graduation

Graduation is no longer just a corny Vitamin C song to me anymore. Next week is my own high school graduation, and now that the event is nearly here, it all feels so incredibly real: leaving home, heading to college, living mostly on my own without the guidance of my parents. I remember starting freshman year thinking that high school would be the longest four years of my life. In reality, the time flew by all too fast.

Looking back on my high school career, I was never that sentimental about moving from one grade to the next. I often counted down the last days of school on a huge calendar on my desk, just to make crossing off the final day that much sweeter.

But now, I find myself feeling rather schmaltzy about it all. On the last day of classes, I shambled after classmates and teachers to get signatures for my yearbook. I spent most of last week reminiscing with friends about the past few years the way my grandparents do about the “olden days.” I’m normally not one to wear my emotions on my sleeve, but something about this particular milestone in my life has been bringing these feelings the surface. The sadness about leaving friends and family, the uncontainable excitement of a new adventure – the mixture of the two is something I’ve never experienced before now.

When I think about crossing the stage at graduation to receive my diploma and move the tassel on my cap (an act that, I admit, I’m oddly eager for), that mixed bag of emotions, as well as the Vitamin C song, makes me realize that graduating isn’t going to be a cakewalk. Transitioning from high school to college isn’t like going from one grade level to the next; I can’t just count down the days on a calendar and brush off the change as nothing. Graduation day, I realize now, is going to be bittersweet in a way no other event in my life has been. So cue the music and break out the tissue box – graduation day is on its way!

What stories do you remember from your high school graduation?