I graduated from high school on June 26th, and in the weeks since I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what that means. Mostly this comes in alternating waves of excitement and abject terror; a special kind of butterflies in the stomach that has resulted from the realization that most of the things I once held on to as stable and consistent in my life are no longer in place. The roof, all four walls, and the floor of the safe little house I’ve built for myself here have been removed in one fell swoop. To say I don’t feel ready would be an understatement. But I also know that if I only ever did things I felt ready for I probably wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
The scariest part about this whole thing, though, has been my all-pervading worry that I should, by now, be far better at being a person than I currently am. There are so many things I feel like I should have gotten over — my perfectionism, my fear of taking risks, my socially awkward tendency to somehow be simultaneously both overbearing and shy — and as much as I’ve been working on it, it’s hard to tell if I’m making any kind of progress. My growth as a human being isn’t something that can be easily quantified, so as long as I continue to be obsessed with being able to control and understand everything in my life, I won’t be able to shake the feeling that I must somehow be failing.
It’s not that I think I’m supposed to be flawless, but with University right around the corner, I’m terrified that where I am right now isn’t good enough, and even more terrified that I’m never going to change. That there’s some kind of inherent problem with who I am as a person, and regardless of what I try to do I’ll always, deep down, be left with myself.
So, confused and concerned and close to the end of my tether, I did what I always do in this kind of situation: I started to write.
What resulted is kind of my unofficial graduation speech — one last nod to high school before I step out into the “real world”, and a way to reassure myself in attempting to reassure others. I hope it can be of some use to anyone who reads it no matter what stage of your life you’re graduating from, even if it’s just the step between today and tomorrow.
Without further ado:
An open letter to the Class of 2016,
One thing that’s become increasingly apparent to me over the past little while is that high school just kind of… ends. You go to your last few classes, take your exams, get your grades, and waltz out of graduation with a diploma that supposedly signifies some kind of meaningful achievement, and then, well — then it’s the whole rest of your life.
With graduating from high school, as with pretty much every so-called milestone in our lives, we spend so much time thinking about what it’s going to be like that by the time we actually get there it really doesn’t feel as special as we might have hoped. I turned 18 in January, officially making me an adult in the eyes of the Canadian government, but I certainly didn’t wake up that morning feeling any different than I usually do. It was just another day, like every other day, and every other big and little moment in my life that never seem like very much at all while they’re happening to me. The thing is though, all those big and little moments add up to something.
Think about who you were when you started high school compared to who you are now. You’re still the same person, but you’re also someone entirely different. You look a little different — a little older — you like different things, you have different friends, you’re better at some things now (and worse at others). You’re still you. But you’re different.
Growing up doesn’t happen all at once. It doesn’t hit you over the head in some transcendent moment of clarity and change. It happens day by day, moment by moment, ploddingly, painfully, s l o w l y. But it happens. It’s just almost impossible to notice. Simultaneously never-ending and over in the blink of an eye, we are hedged in at all sides by the inexorable passage of time.
This can be sad. You can be nostalgic about all the good moments you’ll never be able to relive. You can worry about the wasted time you won’t get back, the decisions you won’t be able to change, the things you said, did, were.
You can hate yourself for not growing up fast enough, not learning the lessons you feel like you keep on being hit with over and over, you can wish with all of your heart for things to get better right away, for things to stop hurting, for you to finally find the perfect life you know you’re meant to have.
But we all know it doesn’t work like that.
How it does work is the way it always has, and how it has over these past few years. Think back again to who you were when you started high school. In another four years you’ll probably feel the way you feel about yourself back then, about yourself right now. The things you’re scared of won’t seem so bad anymore, the views you hold will feel outdated, you’ll say things like “I was so stupid back then!”, and “what was I thinking!”. You’ll probably be embarrassed. That haircut! Those shoes!
But I want you to give yourself some credit. Everything looks much easier in retrospect. Right now it’s hard. Right now it’s scary. Right now it hurts like hell. But one day, maybe in four years, maybe in fourteen, maybe in forty; one day it won’t anymore. You’ll have new problems then — don’t get me wrong, it never just ends — but these problems, these fears, they’ll be gone.
I’m never going to be able to find all of the answers. I know that. I know I’m never going to be able to completely understand myself. I know there are always going to be parts of me that will never change completely. But I also know that I am who I am because of all the unique ways I’m messed up. Maybe I’ll always be a bit of a perfectionist, but maybe I’ll also always love socks with funky patterns on them, and use quotes in casual conversation, and skip down stairs, and cry at the happy parts of movies. Those things are as much a part of me as anything else is. We can choose what we allow to define ourselves, and there are so many things that I think define me right now that one day I’ll barely remember. And that’s good too.
Who you are right now is only one small point on a path that goes so far away you can’t even imagine what’s on the other end of it. The trick is knowing that the path doesn’t stop. There’s no big end goal, no glowing mountain for you to reach and know that now, finally, you’ve grown up, you’re all better, all done. What there is, is you. Right here, right now. And the will to keep on going anyway.
I would wish you good luck, but you don’t need it.
Things will change, that’s part of being alive. Whether you like it or not, they always do.And I hope that you are always, always, always growing up.
Love,
Ella
