Pomp and Circumstance

For the past few weekends, I've seen balloons tied to posts and mailboxes around town.
I knew that could only mean one thing --
graduation parties!!

Being the nostalgic type, I began thinking about my own senior year.

 Those last few days of school.

Yep, this is my entire class. Or pretty close. I'm seated third from left in the front.

Graduation Day.

I think my expression says, "I can't wait to get out of here."

I'm on the far left. We were all ready to be done.

I can't believe it's been 14 years since then.  

FOURTEEN YEARS.

In some ways, I've changed so much since then.  And in others, I'm still very much that same girl.

Thanks to facebook, I keep in touch with many of my high school classmates.  

I went to a small school, so there were only 43 of us. We had no choice but to be close. But being close didn't mean we liked each other.  We had our fights, but there were also some fun times.  

Graduation Day was one of those days when I actually felt like my class was unified. The girls wore lavender gowns and the guys wore silver ones (those were the class colors we picked out).  We planned ahead, and each of us brought a golf ball with our name on it to hand to the principal as he handed us our diplomas.  We reasoned that he could take those balls out to a driving range and literally knock us out of his life.  Also, it was fun watching the pockets of his suit fill up.  Oh, and the final classmate to cross the stage handed him a trash can to put the golf balls in too.

At that time, each class also got to pick their own music -- one song for when we were seated and one to walk out to. 

This was the song that played while we were sitting ...
and holding up lighters and spraying each other with water guns.

Yep, Hootie and the Blowfish.  Sentimental song, but obviously we weren't really feeling it.  We should have known better.  We weren't really a touchy-feely class.  We were friends, but not best friends.  We probably should have chosen something more fun.

That's where our recessional song came in.

Yeah, baby.  A little Guns N Roses.  That's a little more my class' style.

Good times.  Although our lighters and water guns pretty much put an end to the tradition of each class choosing their own songs.  That's our legacy.  Sorry, underclassmen.  It was the last day our class was all in the same room. The same place. Now, we're scattered, and not just geographically.

Ahh ... those were the days.  Well, they were days.  I did not like high school at all.  People talk about their glory days, but mine definitely didn't happen in high school.  (I'm not sure they've even happened yet.) There's so much I know now that I wish I'd known back then:

- Study more. Even though it's easy, work a little harder.

- Boys are not worth your tears. None of them.

- You may not be one of the "popular" girls, but you're a lot more like them than you or they realize.

- Don't worry so much. About anything. It'll all work out.

Perhaps I could have enjoyed high school more if I'd had this wisdom. Then again, I think I still struggle with each of of those things some days.  Maybe I need to remind myself of them now.

What do you remember about your last few days of high school?

What was your Graduation Day like?

What do you wish you'd known back then?