Graduation Day

Well, the invitations are coming in and my graduating student is thoroughly excited to celebrate with her friends.

And I feel like garbage.

I didn’t get a copy of Oh, the Places You‘ll Go! signed by everyone she’s interacted with since toddlerhood.

I didn’t get senior portraits in a field of weeds.

We don’t have any parties or trips planned.

I didn’t do any of the trendy Instagram-worthy Pinteresting things that I wasn’t even aware of.

It’s been a rough few years, with COVID closing all our extracurricular activities for a couple years. And after that, my teens aged out of a lot of classes and camps and some never started back up after the quarantine. There have been several ups and downs with job changes and income levels fluctuating.

I feel like I really dropped the ball and the end of this year has kinda snuck up on me.

My own senior year and high school graduation week was a fiasco.

I was one of the first students in Georgia to attempt dual enrollment with high school and college. My counselor and principal refused to help or grant any concessions or early dismissal, so I went directly to a local college and enrolled as a Freshman Scholar. I was still required to complete senior English, so I had to take marketing and another elective in order to leave early. I was require to work part time retail for my marketing class.

Senior week is supposed to be a fun time with graduation practice and whatnot, and when I showed up, several students forgot I even attended the school.

Graduation itself was funny. We handed condoms to our principal as we accepted a fake diploma. Several of us brought silly string and hid it in our sleeves. In order to receive our diploma folder, we had to return our cap and gown and a silly penlight since they thought it was a good idea for some “candlelight” moment. I dropped mine so they threatened to withhold my actual diploma.

My parents decided to go celebrate my graduation in downtown Atlanta at Chops steakhouse. Then they got upset I ordered lamb chops instead of steak. I swear I have seldom been so embarrassed: they stole the steak knives from the table. As we left, I pointed to a case by the door where they sold the knives and branded merchandise. I don’t even remember getting any gifts. We didn’t have a party with my large extended family or any of my friends.

I don’t really like ceremony anyway, but I always wanted my kids to feel special and that any day of celebration for them was about them and not about me.

My first child completed our homeschool in Germany and we were so happy for her and I got some fun photos at a nearby park and I ordered a cute pink mortarboard for her. We didn’t have a party since we didn’t have anyone to invite. We had traveled to many cities in Europe so she has some special memories of her teen years. We moved back to the States and she got a part time job and started college a year early. She didn’t want her driving license until she was eighteen. She resented a lot and regrets a lot of what we had to do, but she also wishes she could have graduated college during COVID somehow like some of her peers.

My elderly parents live near Atlanta, but they don’t communicate with my family; they express no interest in my kids at all. They don’t even seem to remember that I have four children, and often lump the middle two together. We haven’t seen my parents since 2018. My husband’s sisters don’t talk to me or the kids. They live near Chicago, and we haven’t seen them since 2012. It’s lonely and sad.

But I can celebrate my child even if no one else will.

She has performed with aerial gymnastics for about seven years – silks, lyra, and trapeze.

She has a part time job at a local grocery store since she was fifteen.

She has been a College Credit Plus student at a local university for two years, so she is already a sophomore in college at high school graduation. She is accepted as an honors student there this fall and we are very proud. She plans to commute so she can have better food and the comfort of her own bed and space.

She wanted her driving license as soon as possible so we got her the mandatory driving skill classes and a cute little Prius when she turned sixteen.

She attended Space Camp last summer, which has been her dream all her life.

We’re thrilled she got invited to the local high school prom with a group of girl friends.

We are very proud of everything she has done and she has some great goals I am sure she will meet!

Yes, I know that admonition about having only eighteen summers, and I know we have had some great and busy ones and some boring not so great ones. I also feel I have a few more summers to make some great memories, and I have no intention of just sending my kids away to live their own lives without me. I will stay as involved and close as they will let me be. I am blessed that my kids still want to go shopping, attend events, and travel with me.

This summer, we have a beach trip planned, but it will be a multitasker for my son’s baseball tournament. I hope to have a few long weekends or short trips to places that are interesting to my graduating child – hiking or thrifting, art and history museums.

Graduation should be a time for celebration. It’s a huge milestone for kids on the cusp of adulthood.

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