"The Graduation Speech (That Never Happened)"
Submitted anonymously
Good afternoon, [REDACTED]. My name is [REDACTED], and you may recognize me as the girl who reads the morning announcements. We've been through a lot over the past four years, and it's my honor to be here today to deliver one final announcement to all of you.
This likely wasn't what you expected for the end of your high school career. If you had told me back in January that fourth quarter simply wouldn’t happen, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are, a long way from the senior send-offs we were all looking forward to. It wasn't just the big things we missed, but the little things too: one last goodbye to our friends and teachers, or one last lunch period stepping around people in the hallways. We had those lasts—we just didn't know it—and we can mourn those losses, however small. It’s okay to be sad; it just means that we can cherish the future, and our friendships, all the more.
High school as a whole is difficult. It’s messy and it’s real and it’s meant to shepherd us into adulthood. The coronavirus took the last of high school and turned it on its head, but the transition went on anyway. Never in our lifetimes have we seen routine break down so thoroughly, so fast. Never before have we felt the loneliness as the great wide world suddenly wasn’t so wide anymore. In a way, coronavirus was the final lesson we’ll ever have together. We had to give up our freedoms so that others could live, because that is what being in a community is about—making those sacrifices for the collective good. At the same time, I hope you’ve also learned to care for yourself. I want you all to know that your best is, and always has been, good enough. We all struggled with the monotony and the isolation and the days that blurred together like raindrops on a car window. It’s okay if you weren’t functioning at one hundred percent. Some of you had to provide. Some of you had to work to survive. And I hope that in between all the worry and the fear, you learned enough to appreciate the good that comes with simply being and breathing in the moment.
Because we are here, at graduation. A celebration of all your hard work, not only over the past four months, but the past thirteen years. And to end my final announcement, there is one last thing I would like to say: I’m proud of you. All of you.
Thank you.
