Internet, Let Me Tell You Another Time I Was Wrong...

I am in Minneapolis this weekend, for the Southwest High School Class of 2009 graduation, which happened tonight at Northrup Auditorium. My little baby sister Zoe, the first and only person I have met within 5 minutes of her birth, graduated. I am also, of course, a Southwest graduate... although in my day the ceremony was outside at the football field. More changes include the dissipation of the largest Tibetan community outside of Tibet (everyone is named Tenzin, and I can explain it...) and the influx of huge Somali famlies. The hall outside was a beautiful sight, full of Somali women and children, delighted at their sons and daughters accomplishment. I wanted so badly to take a picture of a group of them with mylar balloons, but didn't know how to without being rude... so I have a mental picture I'll hold on to.

I realized soon into the ceremony that I've never been to a graduation that wasn't my own. I felt impatient and cynical, mostly the whole time. I felt like the speeches were full of cliches and repetition and at one point felt the urge to shake some of the 18 year old speakers and assure them, in the annoying and condescending tone I used to hate that I have apparently grown in to, "BELIEVE ME, it will get so much better...." They spoke about the great friends they have and the importance of these 4 years. I felt old and wise and a little jealous that they still have the last ten years I've had ahead of them. They're a great ten years, I thought better and more important than anything that came before. They've been life-changing and life-affirming and I do believe I have been probably three different adults in this time. I wouldn't trade it. I noticed that my art teacher from high school was one of the "senior advisors" and then saw her there, across a sea of purple plastic caps and gowns. She was my second-favorite teacher in high school. She was young and cool and since my first-favorite retired a couple of years after we graduated, she's now my "favorite" teacher still at Southwest. When Zoe went to pick up her diploma after the ceremony, the art teacher was handing out "N through R" or something. I went over to her, tapped her on the shoulder, she turned and said, "oh my god!" And remarked at how I look exactly the same. She asked what I am doing, I said I just graduated from law school and she said, "no shit!?" And I felt so strongly like I was going to start crying... and crying hard. But I didn't, we chatted, she continued to hand out diplomas and then I left.

And now I am pretty sure I am wrong. If those years were so cynically wasted, why did her hug bring me to tears? Was it yearning for a time when teachers were also part social worker, I could cry and tell her my fears about the newest stage of adult life? Was it the undeniable that when Southwesters get together, for a wedding like September 2008 or on my deck over my birthday weekend, there is something reassuring about being with people who have known me for a long time? Longer than the new new law school life, longer than even college life (which is now almost ten years, and believe me, I value more than I can blogsplain)? Because, as I think I have mentioned before, I left Minnesota and thought I was so done and ready to start a new life-- and I got one. But it's refreshing and necessary to be around people who connect the old life with the "new" life with the new new life.

I liked one part of the student speeches very much, it was about how lots of things we think are important now will stop seeming as important. But that they are important, because they are a reflection of the choices we make and the choices we make are who we are. Soon I will switch to an even newer life, not completely alone as I have been for the past two incarnations, but a new life anyway. So, here we are Internet, I think I was wrong. It's not cool to be cynical and thinking high school didn't matter is... wrong. Those were choices, it's all part of me and connecting 28 year old me with 14 year old me... is, well, an ok reason to cry.