Another class has grown and left the grade school system, and takes me back to my time in high school. This year is the first year that the graduates weren't even in high school when I graduated! I wonder how the first year of graduates who weren't even in school when I was will feel.
Graduating class of 2012, you don't even know. There is so much more to life than high school. Some of you may be frightened to leave your classmates and homes behind, some of you may be staying at home for another year or so and wondering what it will be like without seeing those classmates every day, and some of you are totally pumped to be done with all of this and finally "on your own".
I can tell you, though, that you don't even know. Heck, I still don't know where life is taking me, but I can tell you that I didn't expect to have anything that I have now when I graduated high school. Enjoy the ride, kids. Don't fear change, and don't hold on to your plans so tightly that you miss out on the bigger better ones waiting for you when you let go. Keep setting goals, re-evaluating plans, and working hard. It's not over. No, to be cliche, it's just beginning.
Something new is always beginning.
When I graduated, I had plans to go to an art school in Minneapolis for photography. Well, that plan was an expensive one, and the school was so new that they could not offer much financial aid. At the end of the summer, I had to change plans and ended up going to the community college, but it was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me at the time. I just didn't know at the time what plans could possibly be better than mine.
A week or so after graduating from high school, when plans for art school were still in place, I also had plans for my relationship with Garth. The plan was that we would continue to date and enjoy each others' company for the summer, then part ways when I left for school. I thought this was a particularly good plan because he would still be in high school the next year anyway.
His plans were different. Now I think of them as maybe more in-tune with God's.
As I was leaving one clear night in June, I hugged Garth good-bye, and realized that his hugs were something I liked too much to leave at the end of the summer. I decided that it would be best to end it all sooner than later, and through tears, I told him what I was feeling. I told him that we'd only end up hurt and that I didn't want to go through it at the end of the summer. I wanted to lead him to agree with me and end things himself, mutually, and when I was through I was met with complete silence.
He kept me in his grasp and would not let me go, as I stood by the door calming myself. The silence began to get to me so I said, "Say something. Please, anything."
Then he squeezed tighter and whispered, "I love you, too." He told me how he would come visit me at college and we would just see how things turned out.
I returned his tight squeeze and quietly asked him to repeat that first thing he said, and he responded, "I love you, too."
It was scary. It was exciting. And with my stomach in knots I told him I did love him.
Because I did. And I still do.
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