To the Class of 2020: With Love

To the Class of 2020: With Love,

Graduation.  Commencement. A step into the next chapter, taken away, seemingly in an instant.  The moment representing an end to one part of your journey. A culmination of moments that make the big moment even better.  You considered what color gown you would wear, how your stoles would compliment it, how you would celebrate with your friends and family afterward.  You even probably already had to consider who you might have to see at the graduation party because there simply wouldn’t be enough tickets for everyone you love.  Maybe you didn’t care much about the moment itself, but decided that your mom deserved to celebrate the moment too.

High school grads, you’re watching your school districts make plans that involve pushing graduation ceremonies out into July, feeling hopeful that the effects of the global pandemic will have calmed.  Hopeful that you and your fellow classmates will have a chance to wear the caps and gowns you’ve been thinking about donning since at least last May, when you officially rose to senior status.  

I sympathize with the sadness you may be feeling at this moment.  When the clock struck midnight and the year 2020 officially hit, you didn’t think that the last moments of bracing your high school hallways would have been cut short by two months.  All of a sudden, you’re faced with distance learning, yet you were one of the ones who basked in the distance that school brought from your home each day.

You thought you had time to soak in the moments of the final sports games.  You and your friends were ready to steal the show at prom, making memories of a lifetime and dope Instagram photos.  There is no doubt; your teachers and administrators are feeling the effects, too. They planned to be able to give encouragement and support, even a hug if you needed it, at least up until mid-May.  Few of us were ready for this abrupt change, yet so many stepped up to deal with it. 

To the college graduates, your path to this moment may be much different from the person you’d be sitting next to at your commencement ceremony.  Nonetheless, you made it. You too likely experienced an abrupt shift in your final semester of school. I know that graduation is more than walking across the stage.  It represents late nights of studying, the opportunity to create generational change and a moment in time to simply say to yourself, “I did it!”

Even without the moment to turn your tassel from one side to the other, I hope you still get to bask in your accomplishment.  You get to be sad, you get to mourn the moment, but you also get to hold your head up when the time comes.  

Class of 2020, your strength in the face of uncertainty is admired and however you need to celebrate your moment, just do it.

xoxo