The Speech

I found writing this speech very difficult. There was so much that I wanted to say, so much advice I wanted to confer, so many people I wanted to thank, and so many inside jokes I wanted to incorporate. I was tempted to turn this speech into a litany of aphorisms, like the ever-so-popular Sunscreen Song. But in the end I settled on this:

I know I am not the first person to point out the dual nature of the word "commencement," and I'm sure won't be the last. It can refer to a ceremony like this one, the capstone on a career of learning. In its more basic definition, however, it means "a beginning." For some of us, it's the beginning of a business career, for others a college or vocational school career, and for at least one of us, the crucible of American Idol.

Our futures are diverse and uncertain, but what we all share is the past. We all today leave behind the willows by the brook, Willy the Warrior, and the chameleon-like Rock. We take with us the lessons we have learned, the memories we have made, and the diplomas we will receive today. Many of us also take a large collection of Trolls. (I personally have six.)

But today is the day when our paths diverge. Today is the last time that the graduating class of 2004 will be together. We will go off to colleges all over the country, we will move to the four corners of the earth, we will forget and be forgotten. It is sad, but it is inevitable. Even our favorite teachers, four of whom graduate with us today, will not remain here indefinitely. Even those of us fortunate to have our photograph on a wall here will not escape oblivion. You can look at those photographs outside and learn that so-and-so was all-state in wrestling in 1972, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone here who knows more about them than a name, a face, and a title. The building will not remember us. While these walls may stand a hundred years, Willowbrook High School as we have known it will die today.

What can we learn from such melancholy thoughts? What advice could come of them? Firstly, this: be not like Frost's traveller, who at the end of his journey down the road less traveled reflects, "I shall be telling this with a sigh/somewhere ages and ages hence." The choices we make now affect the rest of our lives; that much we know. But what is the point of looking back and asking, "what if?" The successes and the failures that you have now and henceforth will ultimately matter to no one but yourself. Your life has many transient spectators, but in the end it is up to you to keep score. You can never know where another path might have led you, so it is useless to ask. To quote the common aphorism, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

Secondly, I'd like to encourage anyone who has not already done so to register with classmates.com. It's free, and it will help not to lose those few to whom you wish to hold on.

Finally, I believe I can speak on behalf of our whole class in thanking the faculty and administration for all that they have done to help us prepare for the challenges ahead.

Now as we are about to go our separate ways, we should all remember that each of us is a Warrior, ready to tackle whatever the world throws our way. In the words of one of our own, "The sky is our oyster."