Lilly

They call my name, and I don’t trip on my gown, and 11 seconds later high school is over.

My best friend shows up with a gift—a fancy journal and pen, she says, to record all of the new memories I make in college. Once I get home I read the inscription she left on the first page and it’s the only thing that makes me cry all day. I start writing in it right then and there. Here is part of what I wrote.

I guess it still hasn’t sunk in that it’s OVER, for good, all caps, that’s it, forever! The flowers on the mantle and diploma on the shelf might say otherwise, but part of me still believes that I’ll get up bright & early tomorrow and ship myself off to class as usual. Or, if not that, I’ll be back in the same old building come August, with the same people I’ve come to know and all the friends I’ve loved dearly over the past five years.

Because my friends are all such beautiful people, and I don’t know what great thing I did in some past life to deserve them, but whatever it was, it must have been huge. And sometimes that hugeness is daunting, and depressing, and I feel as though I don’t deserve them. And that is hard. I have been sadder this past year than in all my previous years combined.

But I cannot be sad today.

Later, I pick up my yearbook and everyone tells me how much they’ll miss me. They promise to keep in touch, even though that’s never a guarantee; this may be the last time I’ll ever see a few of these people. But that’s OK, too. There will be new places, and new people, and new friends. These things happen. Those who really care will find a way to continue doing so.

And I see that immediately. One of my closest friends says, “Let’s get brunch tomorrow,” and another says, “Finally, we can catch up on all those shows we’ve been talking about!” We are reaching a time in which staying a part of each other’s lives is going to require actual effort. We don’t have eight hours a day crammed into one building to keep us together by sheer commiseration. To see that effort so soon is meaningful in itself.

To sum it up, here is the difference I am trying to portray. Looking through the notes people left in my yearbook, two stand out, right next to each other. The first: “It was a great five years.” The second: “This is not goodbye!”

And on a first read, the first might make me sad. But I cannot be sad today. ♦