Graduation

Well…Hello!

I’ve always loved the concept of Graduations. Even though I haven’t been to a lot of them, I still love the concept of celebrating years of work and the start of adulthood. There are a few memories I have connected to graduations, from the high school and college graduation parties for my cousin to my sister’s high school graduation 2 years after mine, and a year after I released the original version of this story on Wattpad.

I enjoyed my own graduation ceremony. It was in our school’s football field, the weather was comfortable enough (for someone who prefers the winter weather). After the ceremony, I went out for lunch with my best friend, and got the cutest stuffed owl which I named after my favorite Formula 1 driver.

I was 18 when I started writing this story. It started off as a way to look back at what happened to me during one of the worst moments of my life, and try to find closure in things that I never really got closure to. And even now, at age 20, I’m still searching for things, while hoping to move forward from these things.

What I’m trying to say is, that with this story, I wanted to note that moving forward, in any direction and at any speed, is a beautiful process. Similar to a graduation. Granted, there isn’t always a ceremony for it. There shouldn’t always be one, but the steps taken should be celebrated in a way that feels appropriate.

These little graduations come in many different forms. The start of a relationship, the end of a relationship, a new job, a promotion, leaving that job, moving from one place to another, deciding to stay, discovering you were wrong, discovering you were right, and welcoming changes that benefit your life. At the end, every decision that you make with your own life is a graduation. Hell, even when you break away from people’s expectations because your truth doesn’t line up, that’s a graduation. It’s your life, your body, your decisions to move forward to embrace your identity, and it’s all up to you, which is how it should be.

People will come in and out of your life in ways that are going to affect you. It may feel miserable, or even euphoric at times. Opportunities will also be the same way. And I hope that no matter where someone is in their life, they can find comfort in a story like this.