Megan graduated last Saturday. And Chloe the night before. Such truely boring things. I hated mine. The bore of watching close to three hundred people walk across a stage when you really only care about one of them, maybe two or three. And the endless line of speeches, all of which are on the same damnable topic. And no one seems to come up with anything new. Not at the graduations themselves, in any case.

There are a few standard lies at any commencement ceremony. They'll try to tell you that you have reached a cross roads, and that you should either take the road less traveled by, or find your own path, or something. But not once have I come to a crossroads in my life. It'd be great if the world were so easy as that. That all you had to do was come to the cross roads and take the correct path. The real world isn't a road, though. It's a forest, or a wide open plain. No street signs, in any case.
Or perhaps the speaker will tell you that you've just stepped onto the first rung of a ladder. This one is also crap. First of all, not all ladders go up. Get onto the first rung of the wrong ladder and you'll end up six feet under. But even besides that.... by the time you reach almost every commencement in your life you've already got a good start on this ladder, up or down. Graduation doesn't change you, it's the four years before graduation that make the change, so there is no "first rung of the ladder" crap.
Then there is always the phrase about entering the real world. ..... yeah, I'm not even going to dignify this one.

This is all I tell people anymore. College is the best chance you'll ever have to re-make yourself into who you want to be for the rest of your life. Your family isn't there to hold up their expectations, your old friends aren't there to make you into mirrors of them.... You have a chance to be exactly who you've always wanted to be.

I tried to use this material in a toast to my sister, but I had the misfortune of speaking after my Uncle. Anyone who tries to say anything after him ends up tripping on their own tounge. Never have I met anyone who could say so much so well with so few words. The embodiment of eloquence. Maybe, just maybe, though.... she'll turn out alright.

Congrats, Squirt (and all the Class of 2002)