The Graduation

I attended my nephew’s eighth grade graduation last Friday. Not an event I expected to have too much of an impact on me in the previous days leading up to it, as I thought back to my own middle school graduation with not much feeling attached. Also being that I see my nephew on a very regular basis, as he lives only about thirty miles away.

I sat in the row of metal chairs next to my mom and my nephew’s dad, my brother. Sorry if that was already self explanatory…I tend to write for those peeps with the same disoriented, befuddled brain I carry around all day.

Assuming my only goal in that hour was to cheer excitedly at the calling of his name, I was taken by surprise by the unexpected flood of tearful emotion that burst out of my eyeballs at first sight of him in cap and gown, making his way down the center aisle of the auditorium, looking way more socially confident than I had foreseen, being that he doesn’t always verbally express himself one on one. But I am guessing that cranial grounded strut may have been due to the nature of his off the charts intelligence, like his father, who’s favorite pastime when we were very young was to play with cerebral challenging games like Chess and Dungeons and Dragons while I did cartwheels in the background and picked lemons off our backyard trees in order to hide in the front yard bushes and throw them at un-expecting passing cars!

Let’s face it…I was born with issues.

But this article is not about me.

The Graduation Day tearful and heartfelt emotions didn’t solely begin at the sight of my nephew. It seems those subtle sobs had been slowly and secretively activated by the very start of the ceremony. At the young girls and boys dressed up and excited about the upcoming forward trajectory of life. I looked at them with not just the normal cliche’d envy of the youth, but found myself imagining what they would do with their lives going into adulthood, and looking back with contemplation on what I had done with mine. With the potential I possessed at their age and the infinite possibilities of how much more I could have done. A way too unwanted yet needed realization and in-depth assessment of the many years I have spent just living to survive, but not striving for a great success. Observing these young adults portal from child to decision maker. Witnessing what seemed almost like my nephew’s birth all over again even though he is already fourteen, yet just being barely being born into the realness of life. I’m pretty sure that how you survive high school sets the tone for your adult years.

Yikes. This got heavy.

If only my nephew had graduated when I was thirty instead of fifty! Maybe I could have had these realizations earlier. But I’m a slow learner…

And as for my short stint as the juvenile lemon bomber, I mostly got away with it, till one guy stepped on the brakes and bolted out of his car toward my front door to confront a parent. But luckily, just like me, my mother was a slow learner too, and believed my future actress, entertainer eyes insisting,”It wasn’t me! I swear!”

Congratulations to this beauty of a nephew I love so much! Can’t believe it’s been fourteen years since this pic was taken. xo