Graduation Speech 2nd edition

Holly Castleton- Graduation Speech

“If I should have a daughter instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”/ She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried./ And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”/ But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it. /I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away. /You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life/ Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. /Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.”

That’s parts of Point B by the poet Sarah Kay. My name is Holly Castleton. I figured I would introduce myself because though you may recognize my face, I keep to myself and don’t know most of you. But I have made a study of you, Class of 2014. I have watched you and oh, the things I saw. I saw thousands of tweets, the endless feed of selfies on Instagram and those awkward and socially unacceptable snapchat faces we sent (seriously though, how is that so entertaining?). But, do you remember the way we all felt a part of the whole when we went to football games, listening to the marching band as our pumping hearts became synchronized with the beat? I remember those times at assemblies when we all were forced into that sweaty, disgusting mass of people but came away with that existential feeling of belonging, of being a part of a whole.

But this is high school and those feelings of belonging last just about as long as 99% of 13 year old relationships. (Spoiler alert: They don’t). I watched pretty girls cross examine themselves in the mirror, examining and re-examining every possible flaw in their hair, their clothes, and their body. Somehow under the allusion that just one more layer of makeup or to lose just a few more pounds would do the trick and they would finally be beautiful, little knowing that they already were. I saw people get ignored and forgotten among those who were once friends. I saw heartbreak. But. Don’t despair oh Class of 2014. For this is not the end and what beauty have I also seen! And I did, I saw you! I saw your random acts of kindness. I saw the people holding doors, I saw people helping other people carry stuff around, I saw the smiles from one stranger to another. I saw friendship. I saw a girl help another girl who was crying in the bathroom, someone she had never talked to, comforting her. I saw friends overcome differences and forgive each other. I saw one kid go up to a boy huddled in the hallway and make sure he was ok and asked his name. I heard the people that weren’t afraid to tell someone they liked their outfit or their talent. I saw those everyday acts of bravery and I saw you reaching out to your fellow man- and it was beautiful.

That is humanity. Partly exaggerated by hormones and our lack of development in our frontal lobe, things like followers on Twitter, we have or how much money we make, what kind of a car we drive seem really important but here is a fact for you: they are basically meaningless. Life is about the people we meet and the lives we change. Once we realize that “this life will hit [everyone], hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach” we are more empowered to help others. Everyone has struggles. Remember that you are in control of your own self and frankly not much else. Remember that there are beautiful things and actions all around us, we just have to look. This life is about seeing things in a new way, “to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind”, to move past the material on to how to contribute to the connectedness of mankind.  That poem was about a woman thinking about what she would teach her daughter and it makes me think about what our parents and teachers wanted us to learn in the take-home-life-lessons kind of way. I know they did their best to try and teach us mostly because, as my examples of kindness prove, they succeeded. Our job to take what we have learned from faculty, parents and peers create a life we love, one full of random acts of kindness. Welcome to the beginning of your life- one great big do-it-yourself project. If I was to offer any wisdom of my newly graduated-from-high-school-self it would be this: don’t forget. Don’t forget feeling alone and small, let those memories help you be kinder to others. Don’t forget your worst days so that when you realize someone is feeling the same way, you can do that kind deed that maybe no one did for you. To quote author John Green “You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!”  This is an end, but really, it’s just the beginning.