Our beautiful baby girl, Reylyn, was born Monday June 11. Partially named for Rey in Star Wars, we hope one day people might spell her name right. She is perfect and we are completely in love. We think the feeling is mutual.
I'm graduating in about twelve hours. It feels as if it was just yesterday where I was wondering what high school would be like and now it is the end.
I remember my freshman year, everyone was awkward and trying to find their place. As the year progressed, the pieces started fitting together which formed a path into sophomore year - a strange year because school mattered, but not as much as junior year, and you had friends but your circle wasn’t fully solidified yet. It was around this time I felt most at home, like I found permanent friends - I don’t know if I’m wrong yet, I’ll let everyone know on my deathbed. Junior year was a tough time for everyone; the general status of everyone’s mood was grouchy and tired. There were tests constantly plaguing everyone’s conscience, feelings getting stepped on all the time, and beds being missed every second of the aching day. Junior year was it, the final period of time allotted to polish yourself off for college. My greatest regret concerning my whole college application process, was that I didn’t spend as much time as I should have on myself the previous three years to find what I was really interested in and liked so I was left to settle. Then in senior year, grades were supposed to take a backseat, but I’ve never worked so hard and become so exasperated, frustrated, and exhausted from school work until this particular year. Everything felt like a test on limited and shrinking patience. Senior year was a time for personal development more than anything else, though and how well you were doing just so happened to possibly reflect in your grades. High school just eased the transition from an awkward adolescence to the formation of an independent life. Parents started out regularly checking in on your progress, and gradually the check-in’s became brief comments became nothing and you were left to do well for yourself and make your own phone-calls to crappy college departments.
Honestly, I can't admit to being happy with how everything went but that's just how things go with the flick of Luck and glance of Fate everyone is awarded; yet, what I can confess to, is being completely satisfied. I once read somewhere that in the general scheme of things, the good experiences and memories will outweigh the bad ones and looking back now, the statement really has some true worth to it. In the moment, it probably sounds like a load of bullshit people say so you stop moping around and feeling bad about yourself, but in retrospect those darker days seem so insignificant to the greater times I’ve had with the friends I’ve made and kept.
Right now, it’s not even the big planned hangouts I’m thinking about - it’s the small exchanges in the hallways, the hasty glances and comments traded in class that I’ll miss the most. These small things had become integrated into a larger routine that essentially introduced a sense of comfort in school. There is a predictability to it, a sense of belonging which make it all just so much tougher to part because leaving means change, and though change isn’t necessarily bad, it means adapting to a new norm, finding new small moments to unconsciously expect in the day and becoming a part of someone else’s unconscious routine and norm, too. It’s hard to leave because I love the ones I’ve already found and the idea of replacing them is heart-shattering.
There’s no eloquent way to begin articulating the gratitude I have to these people I’ve encountered, so I’ll just let everything come out as a slobbering sentimental mess. My time in Tech would not have been the same without them and thinking of us parting ways creates a unexplainable tugging right in my chest. Let’s be real here, guys - once we leave and go off into this world, we won’t be the same when we come back. We may or may not still be friends, we can make as many promises to keep in touch as we want, we can sign endless amounts of yearbooks saying “don’t change,” (I don’t know why people write that, it’s stupid) but there’s nothing truly guaranteed because we are all helpless to the possibly cruel tidings of time - what I can promise though and can absolutely bet my life and soul on, is that, in this exact moment, right now, and during the entire time that I’ve known you, no one will ever love you the way I do or miss you the way I will.
