'There's no turning back now...'
I knew one day I would have to tell the tale of the time I spoke at my college graduation and I never wanted that day to come.
You can be proud of something without being boastful. It's hard to find the line that sits between the two, especially when you're writing, but it does exist. Never would I want to boast about the day I got to live out the honor of speaking at commencement, but I do need to share how one of the most impactful days of my life came to be.
My older brother graduated from high school when I was 13. His graduation was the first I ever went to, and man, I thought it was a "Snoozefest!" I also thought that the guy who got to talk, whatever his name was, got the lucky end of the stick. He had something to do, and for five minutes everyone even the older, smarter, more important people had to listen to him – it seemed like a dream.
Fast forward to high school graduation. Stacked next to each other in the stairwells of the Rosemont Theater, my senior class and I dripped hangovers from our pores waiting in line to process on stage.
Who is to say what choice was less informed, the administrator planning graduation on the same weekend or prom, or us students spending our post-prom stupor at beach houses doing anything but sleeping?
However, I, one of the few who was in fine shape the day of graduation became sandwiched in my seat under the hot stage lights. I was sat between a gentle giant who would go on to play offensive line for Ball State, and a poor soul who repeated to himself ‘I'm not going to puke, I'm not going to puke.'
I was not Valedictorian, I was not Salutatorian, I was not the Senior class president, but I was panicking. That's right, in my smushed place on stage I felt trapped and dizzy and faint. A graduating class of 600, and I had to sit there the whole time.
The line of chairs formed a telephone chain to inform the adult in the wings that "Maggie Lynch is going to faint." I was quickly pulled out of the rows. I'm sure that adult, whoever he was, thought I was hungover but no I was just anxious as all hell for a reason that I couldn't explain. I drank water and snuck back in between the lineman and the puker as we walked to get our diplomas.
I never let go of the idea that I wanted to have everyone listen to me at graduation, but there were two problems: I didn't want to have to sit through graduation again feeling trapped in my place between two giants, and I didn't have anything to say.
After running a mental health organization at Lake Forest College, and talking for hours upon hours giving tours, and answering knocks that came to my door from scared freshmen, and of course, tap dancing in front of the entire school, I realized – I had something to say.
Say it I did.
The committee selected the first speech I submitted and called me in for a second round, but the speech I gave during that second round in front of my peers and administration was not the same.
I tossed what I thought they wanted to hear and told the truth: I was a college dropout, I never wanted to go back to school, I found a home, I felt smarter walking out than I did walking in. It just so happened, that the second speech was what they really wanted to hear.
I called my mom at work when I found out I was going to speak. For a few minutes I was too flustered with excitement to remember that not only was I going to have to be at graduation, but I was also going to have to go back under the lights and stay there.
Not many people know this, but I cried, no I sobbed, the night before commencement. Barely getting words out, I tried to find some way to get out of it. I thought that I was going to be the puker this time around.
Something magical happened the next morning, and I swear I think someone put something in my cereal because I was the calmest I've ever been driving up to graduation at Ravinia. I tweeted at Cheryl Strayed that I was about to speak on the same stage I saw her speak at my first year at Lake Forest College, and she liked the tweet!
I processed in and was pulled away from the crowd to sit in a special spot so I could climb up to the stage without disturbing the order of graduating students. Standing backstage preparing to go on, I listened to the main speaker; she was an author. I thought to myself that perhaps taking this step to do this, to say something, was my first step towards being one as well.
She left the stage too fast for me to catch her glance and smile at her, but I knew I was next. My legs shook as I walked on stage and not just from the cold.
My speech in hand, I was jumping off a diving board, saying the first lines of a play, pushing away from the mountain top, walking on to the stage there was no turning back.
I've never told anyone this because I wanted to be prideful in my moment, but there were a few seconds when my vision blurred, and I felt dizzy standing at the podium, and I wanted to turn back, but I ignored those feelings and kept going.
That's what a lot of life is taking a step that you can't turn back from and pushing through what is calling you back. You can take a step towards something you want or towards something that may be something you need to walk away from. That day I took a step away from my past, from my panic, and didn't turn back to it.
On graduation day I learned my final lesson of college, my anxiety could wait because I had something to say.
