I spent four years trying to stand out, I did everything I could to assert my individuality—but blending in with 300 blue gowns, I had never felt more at home, because those are the only people who truly know what it is to be a part of my remarkable class of 2007. Dr. Seuss can list “oh, the places we will go,” and Robert Frost can urge us onto “The Road Not Taken,” but in all fairness, they didn’t attend my school.
Nobody else knows what it’s like to place in a prestigious competition, only to have your name tragically mispronounced during morning announcements; or to learn what a test curve is from Mr. K, then to take pride in a seventeen out of a hundred raw score; or to go to the diner for midnight onion rings and milkshakes after finally winning battle of the classes.
We do. We saw sunny snow days, we saw worlds fall apart and were inspired to rebuild them, we jumped over the candlestick and climbed the hill, we found that perfect song for that perfect moment, and we learned. We learned where success lives, and how to draw the map to get there. We learned to unlock all the right shortcuts, and that friendships are the keys. We learned that we will never know where all the quicksand and undercurrents are, but to cross the river anyway. We learned that hope directs our compass, and it will always point to our dreams.
I have—or at least, I used to have—a Peter Pan syndrome. I didn’t want to grow up. I wanted to stay in high school and keep all these memories in the present—it was my Never Land. But now they tell me that it’s time to leave and go into the real world—and they say “real” as if high school was some sort of practice-round or holding room for something better. The pirates and fairies may have been imagined, but that is not to say they did not exist. These memories—with the anxiety of the challenges and thrill of the triumphs—are very much real. These are the foundations of our grown-up characters. And it is because of this that we all stand here, ready to leave, ready to say goodbye to Never Land.
