Caps and Gowns

So today I went to graduation.

It was a band thing, nothing more. Every year since third grade, I wanted to go, but never knew anyone well enough to go and just sit in the audience. Luckily, my band teacher needed me to play with the concert band for the opening music and the march, so I pretty much got a free pass to sit there and watch what I'd never gotten to see before. And fortunately, I knew several of the seniors.

My friend's dad is a math teacher at the high school, and he gave the commencement address. In his speech, he talked about how graduation is a surreal moment, and how the graduates should savor every moment of it before the night is over, because tomorrow is when they actually start living for the first time. It's probably just because I've never been to a graduation before, but the whole thing seemed surreal to me as well. It was like I was in sixth grade again, and sitting at the eighth grade promotion ceremony, looking at the faces in the slideshow and thinking about how I wouldn't really see them anymore. That will be my face on the slideshow in nine days. But in high school, they really are leaving. Middle school is just gearing you up for the end, the big bang.

Some of those seniors used to be our helpers in dance when I was seven, and they were only in sixth grade. I can still remember looking up at the face of one of the twins, who walked down the procession together, and hearing her tell me that if I could see the audience, the audience could see me. Her twin sister is the lead in our dance show, which closes tomorrow, her last show with us ever. The other helper is one of my favorite high schoolers, who always talked to me in pit orchestra, made me laugh, and gave me someone to look up to. This afternoon she gave the most wonderful speech ever, smiling the whole time at both her classmates and the hundreds of people in the audience. My neighbor friend's brother, a nerdy and wonderful kid who use to play with us when they first moved here when he was fourteen, and organized a bike club for us, walked down the aisle and gave a speech of his own. My friend (the daughter of the math teacher) and her older brother were sitting with me, and even though her brother was complaining about how long and tedious everything was, he'll be up there next year, too. And it was only a little while ago that he was in eighth grade and I was a little fifth grader.

When the seniors got up from the rest of the band after playing a few songs to go get ready, it was a mixture between giddyness and overwhelming sadness. We all clasped hands with them, and our drum major/lead saxophonist looked at his stand partner and simply said, "that was the last piece I ever played in concert band". The two lead flutes, who have kept us sane for as long as I can remember, both walked off, beaming but holding back tears, leaving a freshman and an eighth grader at the head of the section. It might have been the emptyy chairs, but we didn't feel complete without them anymore. Ten members missing, and it felt like it was just an ensemble of lone instruments, with big gaping holes in obvious places. Needless to say, we cheered exceptionally loud for each of them when they went up to get their diplomas. My hands still hurt from clapping.


When I get really wrapped up in myself, all I can think about is how I'll be a senior and gone soon. My friend and I made plans to walk in the procession together, and for me to hand her her diploma after I get mine. But while it might seem like these seniors were my age not that long ago, I was also young and naiive back then, and have grown so much since then that it's impossible for it to have been less than five years. I still have a long, long career of high school ahead of me, full of hurricanes and calm seas, and even though three years ago, sixth grade, can seem like a lifetime in some perpesctives and a quick trip in others, I still have a while. Hopefully, by 2017, I will have made the most of it.