Sarah took this photo of Jake and I! It captures our friendship quite nicely, if I do say so.

So. Graduated the other day. It feels really weird to be finished. Our valedictorian said something about how we’ve all never really been scared because we could always envision what was going to happen tomorrow because it was the same as all our yesterdays, and now we’ve got a whole bunch of tomorrows to figure out because they’re going to be different than all the yesterdays we’ve had.

Yeah, pretty much. I always knew that I wouldn’t see a bunch of people after graduation or this summer and I thought I’d be okay with that. I showed up to graduation at five and if the sun could have a personality, it would’ve been beaming like it does in cartoons, or on the teletubbies or whatever. We all looked goofy in our robes, but not one person wasn’t smiling. It didn’t occur to me as I was calling my mom to bring me the tassles I’d forgotten at home. It didn’t occur to me as I goofed off with the classmates I’d know for the four years that felt like much longer. It didn’t occur to me as our queue was entering the stadium to sit down. But it kind of dawned on me as they started calling our names to get our diplomas. And then we got our diplomas and we threw our caps in the air as we recorded yet another milestone to record on our facebooks.

I walked and I talked and I took pictures with my family and some of my friends, but it was impossible to see all of them. And I walked away from some of them that I’ve even sat next to in kindergarten, with a lighthearted goodbye that probably should have been more because things aren’t really going to be the same. It wasn’t until the stadium started really clearing out that it hit me: I was probably not going to see a lot of these people ever again after this summer. And I mean, we’ll have those awkward encounters at the supermarket, the gas station, the mall, and probably during holiday breaks. But it’s not the same as walking side by side in the hallways and having anything in the world to talk about, if we wanted to.

I felt really stupid for not realizing all that as we filed out of the stadium. Maybe it was an unconscious defense mechanism to keep my eyes from peeing all over my face because last time I did that in front of people, no one let me forget it. But despite how melodramatic I appear to be, I’m okay with how bittersweet it all was. Because what happened at graduation is a microcosm of what continues to happen in life so you’re prepared for when happens again, and again. And maybe again: You’re not going to realize that people are gone until they actually are.

It’s been a pretty good four years, and I know I’m ready to go out and do what I want to do, if only because when I think about even one more week in high school, my soul gets all achey and tired because I’m already so prepared to go out and do what I want, instead of being held back for more preparation.

You ever have those nights when you can’t sleep so you stare a hole through the ceiling while all you can think about is how colossally and unfathomably huge our universe is and how we’re merely specks within a speck within a speck within a speck within a speck in the grand scheme of things? And then you think about how everything that mankind has ever striven for could merely be a distraction from that omniscient buzz from the unknown that is only just below the absolute threshold in the unconscious and just on par with it during the nights when we can’t sleep.

…well, on a smaller scale: if I keep living how I want to live and striving for what I want out of life and how I can pay that back in the future, maybe I’ll be able to overcome that overwhelming but not all-knowing buzz from the present that can’t fathom how I’ll make things happen for myself. Because if I let it, it will cripple me. 

I’ll try to keep that in mind on the first night at college when I’m curled in the fetal position under my blankets in a new dorm room with a complete stranger across the room while I’m missing mum and daddy and high school and the figuratively kinesthetic pleasure of knowing exactly where I was because I didn’t have to think about moving on.

“Why would I want to stay in one place forever? Oh, right. I don’t. Suck it up and go to sleep.”