It's quite daunting, considering one's entire future, the rest of one's life on this first official, coming-of-age occasion. I think many adults forget the emotions that high school graduates experience at this time; the relief in reaching this milestone is diluted or overshadowed with pressure, uncertainty, and the beginning stages that dog one for the remainder of his/her life, the fear of failure.
I remember vividly making a list of dos and don'ts, and thinking that any decision made at this time could/would have an irreversible affect on subsequent directions my life might take. For example, who knows where I might be today if my mother had allowed me to actually run off to Africa to be a missionary or work in the Peace Corps? What might have happened if I hadn't walked out on that chalk-carving test at USC for dental hygienists and not rebelled against the wishes of my father? I knew for a fact that I would not be able to stomach looking into people's mouths everyday for a living. It was in one defining moment I realized unequivocally that I would have to love my life work or die a slow death.
It was precisely at this stage that I made a vow to myself, that whatever decisions I would make, I made of my own free will, would take responsibility for them, and I would not have any regrets. Yeah, as a teenager I was always given to melodrama. Guess what, nothing has changed; my friends still call me a drama queen.
In fact, it's quite interesting how no one really changes from his or her high school days. Attend any high school reunion to experience what I call a cultural phenomenon. I've attended a total of six reunions since my 1962 graduation; each one deserves its own chapter of commentary in regard to the social stages of emotional maturation over the years. Ergo, the truly fun part, and why one attends reunions if truly honest, is what one learns about her/himself through the eyes of peers.
Well, no, I take that last sentence back. The truly fun part of attending a reunion of one's peers is the pure joy of seeing so many familiar faces, or seeing how many faces one can recognize. The secondary byproduct that one can benefit from is how the many anecdotes shared are actually so revealing in nature. One example is how truly alike each and every person thought at the time, when in fact, most teenagers feel totally alone and isolated with their thoughts as a general consensus.
