When yearbooks are handed out during the last week of high school, students spend the next few days fervently collecting messages and signatures for the inside of their yearbook from friends, classmates, and even teachers. If there is any blank space left on the signature pages, you clearly haven’t asked enough people to sign your yearbook yet. Yesterday when I pulled out my yearbook from my senior year at Brockway Area High School, I especially enjoyed reading all of the messages inscribed throughout my book. Besides the words “I’m going to miss you,” “keep in touch,” or “good luck” there was another trite phrase that appeared above many of the signatures from my best friends. The words were “don’t ever change.” Until the age of 18, I spent the majority of my life with my friends from grade school, and the advice this group of people chose to dispense to me repeatedly was the simple reminder to stay the same.
Not everyone has a pleasant high school experience, but I am a firm believer that our adolescence years shape us into the adult we will become years later. Despite growing up and maybe even moving away from home, we have all been molded by our high school friends, bullies, teachers, and coaches. In those days, we dated the person we thought we wanted to marry. We hated homework. We loved two-hour delays. We clung to best friends. We ran to lunch to get mediocre food. We discovered freedom behind the driver’s wheel. We had sleepovers. We slept-in. We tried to befriend the popular kid. We fought acne. We lived for weekends. We marched to pomp and circumstance in funny looking hats and oversized graduation gowns and that was the end. It was a rush of reminiscing as I opened the pages of my yearbook, and I quickly began wondering what all of my classmates were doing with their lives now.
Many seniors are anticipating the excitement of graduation in the upcoming weeks as they get ready to begin the next stage of their lives. It’s a sad time, an exciting time, and a time when these students will listen to the “Graduation Song” by Vitamin C and “Time of Your Life” by Green Day over and over again. We all have words of wisdom we wish to bestow upon these soon-to-be graduates, but the greatest lessons in life they have to learn will be taught only through personal experience.
To the class of 2010: There is a lot to learn about the big world around, and you’re the pilot. You will always and forever be in control of two things on your journey: how you act and how you react in any situation life presents you. May you remember mistakes from your past, the lessons you learned along life’s voyage, and remember what caused you to smile, laugh, cry, or sulk your way through adolescence. Life, like high school, will have its highs and lows, but those with the positive attitude will always prevail and find happiness amongst the clouds.
You may never see your old high school classrooms again. The rooms will change, your favorite teachers will retire, and more technology will find its way into the classrooms you spent hours sitting in years ago. Yet, you’re about to enter a much bigger classroom called life.
The words “don’t change” simply imply you’re special, unique, and one-of-a-kind. I couldn’t agree with the statement more, as I have fond memories of the diverse group of individuals that graduated with me in 2003 from BHS. Despite geography and time pushing my classmates and me apart, those people share a special place in my memories. Remember what “don’t change” means. You’re going to go to new places and meet new people who will also appreciate all of things that make you special. There is no one else like you, and there never will be. Life is one big forest. Your roots have been planted deep within nutrient dense soil, and now is your time to grow tall while spreading your branches over the Earth’s horizons in every direction.
Ryan Devlin is a 25-year-old English teacher and cross country coach at Brockway Area High School. If you own a yearbook with retro flowers on the front cover or want to contact Ryan become a fan of “Keep the Penny” on facebook. Total reader savings thus far for your piggy bank, five cents.
