Gearing up for change isn’t easy

The month of May brings about many changes. The world is getting greener, summer vacation is here, and for the lucky Class of 2008, graduation has finally arrived. For this article, I decided to write about the changes that graduation brings, and how excited I am to embrace each challenge. But that’s not necessarily true.

I hate change.

I’m not the only one though. My physics teacher tells us that everything is resistant to change. He says its called inertia.

Each change in my life, major or minor, was accompanied by copious tears. I cried when I had to switch bedrooms with my brother when I was 8. I cried when I had to go to Palmer High after my eighth grade year at Colony Middle. I cried when our foreign exchange student left at the end of my freshman year. I even cried when school started in August for the first time. And, I always cry at graduation.

I have always hated graduations. This is because with each graduation I attend, a friend, a sibling or a boyfriend leaves Palmer High for something bigger and better. While I am happy for them, I know I will miss them and it seems like an eternity before it will be my turn to receive my diploma. So for me, 2008 graduation was just another change that made me cry.

My most vivid childhood memories are of attending graduations. I hated them so much, because my parents forced me to put on a dress and sit on a hard bleacher seat in a blisteringly hot auditorium for what seemed like hours, listening to a list of names of kids I didn’t know. And I knew that all the ceremony really meant was that in the fall, our house would be one person emptier.

I remember preparing to attend my sister Lori’s graduation, my third ceremony at the tender age of 7. Having a rather short attention span, I was not looking forward to it and I begged my parents that be allowed to stay home.

My logic was sound. I explained to my father that by the time I graduated, I would have seen every single one of my six siblings’ ceremonies, but that none of them would be around to be forced to come to mine.

My dad, trying to comfort me I’m sure, said, “Oh Rachel, I’ll come to your graduation.”

Looking up at my ancient daddy, with all the wisdom of a 7-year-old, I replied, “You’ll be dead by then.”

Right now, I am trying to deal with the fact that things are changing next year. Graduation was one more reminder that I won’t have some of my best friends joining me in the fall for the first day of school.

I know that I will learn from changes, and that it will all work out in the end, but it is hard to deal with. I also know that however antsy I presently am to graduate, I’ll be sad when it comes time for that change.

And until then, here’s hoping my parents don’t die.

Rachel Kenley will be a senior at Palmer High School in the fall.