It’s graduation season, a time for crossing important thresholds and saying final goodbyes.
I have advice to share, but you don’t have to follow it. I can’t recall anything the speakers at my high school graduation said.
Still, I have a few thoughts to pass along if you’ll indulge me.
Let’s start with a sweet encounter with a friend I’d known since third grade. It happened after the ceremony’s pomp and circumstance, so we were officially free and clear of high school.
I was wandering the halls alone. She saw me, choked up and rushed in for a hug.
I was overwhelmed by the whole day, so I didn’t appreciate the importance of the hug at the moment. It turned out to be the last time I saw her.
According to Facebook, she’s alive and well, but she’s living her life, and I’m living mine.
I knew goodbyes were part of high school graduation but didn’t understand how many goodbyes were involved.
So, the first piece of advice I’d give is to realize that you’ve seen some of your favorite people for the last time.
If you’ve lived to the ripe, old age of 17, 18 or 19, you know relationships begin and relationships end. But you might not be prepared for that happening on such a sudden and massive scale.
You walked the halls with these people for what feels like forever. How could it end?
But it does.
If asked to provide a second piece of wisdom, I’d try my best to convince you to stay physically active. I’d suggest that you make a deep and abiding commitment to maintaining some form of moderate exercise for the rest of your life.
Until you hit your thirties, it won’t matter too much. You can get back into shape whenever you decide to start a program. You’ll have a day or two of struggle and then start making gains.
It gets harder when you get older. Gains aren’t easy to come by, and pains linger far longer than you think they should.
Consistent, moderate exercise day after day, month after month and year after year will make your path through the adult world easier to tread. It’ll lift your mood when you’re feeling down and add much-needed grease to joints that will become creaky sooner than you expect.
What type of exercise?
Anything will do, but be careful. I have a limp that comes and goes thanks to a bad day of martial arts training years ago. According to the sage, “The injuries of youth become the infirmities of old age.”
I’ll close with one more piece of advice for new graduates: Hang on tightly to your grandparents if you’re lucky enough to still have them.
For most of us, our grandparents are with us when we’re born, and they stay with us as we grow and learn. They’ve always been there, and it can feel like they always will be.
But that feeling, as natural as it seems, is false. Intellectually, you know they won’t go on forever. Someday, you’ll feel it in your bones.
Love them, lean on them and help them. Fill your memory banks.
You’re crossing an important threshold. High school graduation is a big deal and worthy of celebration. Congratulations on all that you’ve accomplished.
As you leave one stage behind and step into your future, think about who and what you want to carry forward with you because, luckily, not all goodbyes are final.
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