Class of '20: the one we will remember
Dear Class of 2020,
I know you are feeling flat-out robbed. And I feel at least a twinge of your pain.
One of the biggest things I’ve missed during this covid-19 pandemic was seeing the pre-graduation photos of you high school seniors and your dates in your prom finery. I somehow became fascinated with how proms had become red-carpet events … you guys, posed by gorgeous and/or expensive cars, looking like movie stars in custom-made dresses and coordinating tuxedos.
I now feel sad thinking of the gyms, auditoriums and arenas that will stand silent this month, devoid of the crowds of family, friends and well-wishers being herded in and out for high school and college graduation ceremonies. I feel really sad thinking about those beautiful graduation invitations paid for but unsent, or simply no longer valid. Those senior trips not taken. Those senior group photos not posed for. Those senior post-graduation parties and soirees not held.
Yeah, I suppose we Old Schoolers posting our high school graduation photos in that recent Facebook “challenge” could have been seen not as supporting you as we purported to be doing, but simply rubbing your noses in your disappointment. Hope you at least got a chuckle out of how dorky some of us looked all those centuries ago when we were 18.
As of this writing, “alternative graduation experiences” have been planned for you. Some of you will have to settle for “only you” ceremonies, during which you will walk across an auditorium stage clad in cap, gown and face mask and get your diploma with only close family members in physical attendance. Others of you are being offered drive-through graduations. These activities will be videoed and compiled in a larger video representing your entire class. (Some of you will be encouraged to make videos of yourselves, offering your own speeches along with your thank-yous.)
Meanwhile, your proud parents have posted, or will be posting, pictures of you for all their social-media friends to see, clad in your graduation regalia while standing in your bedrooms, living rooms, front yards. You’ll be clutching your diplomas, turning your tassels, throwing your caps in the air. “Join me in congratulating [your name here], a member of the Class of 2020!” they’ll write. We’ll hit the Like and Love buttons and congratulate you with emphasis, because we know that a deadly virus with a regal name cheated you out of a moment you’d been looking forward to for 12 or 16 or more years.
To you 2020 graduates, I say you
have already experienced one notable thing your wouldbe commencement speakers might have warned you about: disappointment. They would have said that disappointment in life is inevitable, and that you must improvise, adjust and adapt, rather than letting disappointment defeat you. They might have also admonished you not to make assumptions or take life’s simple pleasures for granted. You don’t need to be told that now, either. You’ve been flung a sizable chunk of that Real World your elders warned you about. And I’m so sorry.
Again, I know you are feeling robbed. Any verbal expressions of your feelings may have gotten you a “Yes, but think of all these people who have been robbed of so
much worse by this virus” response. To be sure, there are all too many who have lost their lives; even for some survivors, life may not be the same. But as I’ve written here before, it seems in some ways cruel to make yourself feel better about your misfortune by reminding yourself that you don’t have it as bad as the other dude.
My piddly advice may not help much, either, but I urge you to look upon your graduation as a valuable finished product, rather than a ceremony.
A wedding, for instance, is as valid and meaningful when it’s just the bride and groom in jeans, standing before a preacher in his living room or a judge at the courthouse, as it is in a packed cathedral with the bride in a stunning white gown and the groom in a fancy tux. It’s the same with your graduation. You may be missing out
on a traditional ceremony, or at least one at the traditional time of year. But you will still have a diploma/degree that shows you completed the course and which will take you to college, graduate school or a decent job, depending on your chosen next leg of your journey. Ideally, it will open additional doors for you. And we, your family, friends, admirers and supporters, are just as proud of you as we would have been had you been conferred your document in front of hundreds of other spectators.
And, hey, we won’t bat an eye when you tell us that the ceremony may not have taken place, but graduation gifts are just as welcome. Wishing you the best, The Talkmistress