After Graduation

You walk across the gym floor

only this time you're not in gym clothes.

You're in a black romper you bought earlier this week

even though not a single person can see it under the gown.

You did your hair yesterday so it would be ready for today

but now it's getting covered by the cap you’re wearing.

You find your seat on the stage

next to kids you've gotten to know

and you all sit there at the ceremony.

Forty-five minutes feel like hours

as you listen to your principal call out names.

Then they call out yours.

You shake their hand and start walking across the stage

and just like that it's over.

They keep asking you, "How does it feel?"

don't they?

But you don't feel different,

do you?

Life doesn’t change after graduating,

the only thing that changes is not going to school every day.

Now instead of going to school you go to a job,

a job that, in September, will pay for college.

Yeah, life is still the same after graduating.

Just like how it was the same after turning sixteen,

and seventeen,

and eighteen.

At first nothing really changes.

Life still goes on being life.

Day by day, week by week, year by year.

If you decide to look at it that way.

You can look at it as never really changing

or you could look at it as having new meaning.

A new purpose or challenge.

When you think about it,

life really is like a book.

You meet new characters,

and say goodbye to characters.

You start chapters,

you finish chapters,

and each chapter holds a meaning,

a lesson,

an event,

or something to remember.

But in between the chapters,

and the lessons,

and the events,

you start the transition to the next one.

They made transitions sound obsolete in school,

but they’re not.

They're the days that seem average

and end up starting your new adventure.

The days that you just get up and go to work

are the days that progress you forward.

Transitions are often overlooked in books,

not by the author but the reader.

Yet they're just as important as the rest of the story.

Holding key events that build the character,

Or the climax.

The transitions, or average days,

are what make the events so special

and the plot twists more extravagant.

I wish I would have known that after graduating,

that the average days are the most important.

So far I’ve had a month of average days,

but I sit here and reminisce about them,

All of them.

The days I cried,

whether about paying for college,

Or laughing too hard at my mom’s joke.

The days I sat in the driver's seat,

listening to my music as loud as it could go.

The days I sat in the passenger's seat,

with my head out the window.

The days I couldn’t move,

because life was too heavy.

And the days I ached for more,

because life wasn’t heavy enough.

All the days that we will forget.

They’re the days that make us who we are.

And as soon as you realize it,

Is when you finally wake up.

When you finally start your story.