Long awaited friend finally is here

“Graduation, come closer,” has been the plea of East Valley’s graduating seniors. “My friend, come nearer to me!”

For 12 years we have dreamed of the day, sometimes with glee, sometimes with anxiety, and other times with a glaring impatience. Now, with agonizing slowness, June 10 comes closer and our friend whispers on its way, “I am almost here.”

For some, graduation remains an elusive predator, ready to feast upon the unwary, but for most, graduation is a bittersweet end to a lifetime of study, drama, laughter and chaos. The lives we have formed around our schooling will be thrust into a foreign world – a world of college and careers – a world that we are to build or disassemble with our own hands. It is a powerful prospect.

When we were young we built communities with Legos, plushies and sheets draped over the kitchen chairs and we pretended that we were adults ready for anything that came our way. As we grew, we felt more and more capable of actually doing it. Finally our exam is ready for completion and our grade determines the future. Our only notes to study are our memories.

Are we ready for the outside world? Can we become part of a future to look forward to and a past to be proud of? And so begins the reflection. First we remember our bad days. In kindergarten, when our teacher told us not to eat the glue. We were curious, so we tried anyway. In seventh grade we spread a rumor. But we learned from our mistakes. We grew. We learned that rumors hurt when we heard one about ourselves in eighth grade, and we stopped eating glue so fast that the memory of our folly brings a smile to our faces.

Isn’t that, then, the test? Haven’t we learned and grown and become people of a future to anticipate and a past to cherish?

“Come nearer, graduation, my friend.”

“I am almost here!”