Class of 2009: You have accomplished something already

The time has finally come for the Class of 2009 to put down the books and pick up the mortarboards (those weird little flat hats that are part of graduating regalia.)

All of you, I’m certain, could see this coming. But for most of you, it won’t seem real until you wake up the following Monday and realize you’re not driving to school today.

Gone, too, will be the daily homework grind, the cafeteria lunches, the dances, the football games, the tears and the laughter: all the facets of this little academic community that was your home these past four years.

Today, there will be more laughter and more tears, because you’re about to close the door on one of the most important places you’ve ever been in your whole life.

High school is a lot more than tests, report cards and study hall. It’s a lot more than the tangibles – computers, textbooks, grading systems – that we adults tend to yack about.

High school is a place and time that each one of you holds in your heart – and because it is a vastly different experience for each of you, nobody has a lock on what, exactly, the “high school experience” is supposed to be about.

High school is the place where you learned to be adults, one way or another. Sometimes it was an easy lesson to learn; at other times, it was the hardest thing you ever had to do.

Sometimes it was all you could do to survive and get up to see another day. But you did.

Friendships and loves, teachers and classmates, enemies and friends – all of these were the people you had in your life – whether you brought them there, or whether they were put there, thanks to an alphabetical seating chart or an aptitude test. Making it all work somehow was the real test – more important than all the academic tests you had to take these past four years.

You’re about to step into the next chapter of your lives, Class of 2009. And while it might be a scary place and full of unknowns at times, please don’t forget where you have been. You were put into a high school, and you made that place your home. That in itself is an achievement – you made a life for yourself, with nothing but an open notebook, and an equally open mind.

And you’ve got a new family – several hundred of them, to be exact. Family members who don’t stint on hugs and words of encouragement, should you call them. Because you are still all in this together. Even if you are no longer in the same building.

Best wishes to you, Class of 2009.

You made it, and we’re all so proud of you.

Some words of wisdom from Dr. Seuss:

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You’re on your own.

And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

(–from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”)