My graduation

I made it through high school in one piece, but just barely. One question remained. Should I attend my graduation?

I hate formal events. I hate social events. Somehow I was convinced that I might regret not attending, so I attended anyway. Yippee! A drawn out celebration of a piece of paper. Would I really have regretted missing that?

One thing that I remember about the ceremony was that our district superintendent gave a speech. He rambled on and on about how proud he was of his son graduating from another school. He tried to tie that into pride for our graduating class, but he came off as completely insincere. He finished the speech by telling the graduating class that he was proud of us.

Have you ever had a thought so strong that you weren’t sure that you kept it to yourself? A pair of words entered my mind, and I wasn’t sure if I messed up and let everyone know what I was thinking. I looked around. Fortunately, nobody was looking at me. I had kept it to myself rather than burst out with a spontaneous, “Yeah, right.”

Looking back, that day was a waste of my time. All I got out of it was a stupid piece of paper that would have been mailed to me anyway. A stupid piece of paper that certified me as a mindless drone. Instead of regretting not attending, I ended up regretting attending.