A Dedication and A Debt (This has been sitting as a draft for awhile so I might as well publish it)

(This has been sitting as a draft for awhile so I might as well publish it)

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A Dedication

My first coherent thought during graduation.
"Really? They're quoting Steve Jobs?"
I was expecting the whole ceremony to be a life-changing roller coaster of emotions as goodbyes were said and proper endings were made. I was expecting the ending of a fairytale, or at least a YA novel.
That wasn't the case.
People said bye in their usual social chatter. I didn't see any breakdowns or emotional goodbyes. Just goodbyes. Happy endings. It's like at the very end of a story when you expect to see a plot twist, except things really are happy and good and there is no more conflict to introduce or things to wrap up. The characters make their final appearance and you see them leave, but you don't feel anything particularly. It's a conclusion. The characters make their last wave and you wave back but you're feeling only a little nostalgic.
I suspect the climaxes, the big emotional rollar coasters that define high school have already happened. They happened over the four years, over the little fights and social squabbles and grade anxieties...The transformations are completed. Graduation is the end of all that for high school. It's not the part where the bad guys come invade and ruin everything right before the big showdown of the end of the season. (I'm looking at you Vampire Diaries)
I guess I should blame High School Musical for this.
***

A Debt

But what is the case is that I owe these seniors alot.
I owe my sister, for being amazing and wonderful and tolerating my never-ceasing wave of bad moods. I owe my sister for having my back and showing me that school isn't all that bad, for letting freshman me tag along with her friends so I had somewhere to belong to for awhile. I owe her for being a pretty damn cool sister.
I owe the DVP seniors for reminding me that appearances aren't a big deal and that it's okay to feel like shit sometimes. They reminded me that you can be whatever you want to be, and you don't have to follow what you think everyone wants you to be. They helped me learn how not to always be an awkward social turtle, which I'm internally grateful. Most of all, they were there for me even when they barely knew me. Hell, I still don't know them. But I owe them.
I guess I learned that you have to be kind and understanding because people are screwed up too.