Pomp

I tend not to be terribly retrospective. In general, I think I'm a fairly forward-thinking person, but considering an era of my life is coming to a expedited conclusion I shall indulge myself today.

I'm no longer a high school student. My brother is no longer a teenager. He and his friends act more like adults every time I see them. I'm going off to university soon. I have a job, two, in the actual field I hope to go into after college. This, though I say this without the necessity of saying it, is an extremely surreal period. I often cringe away from excessive ceremony. Today's festivites will most likely bore me, more than move me. Speculatively, I don't think any of this is going to "hit me," as they say, until August and the long string of good byes. However, this is the beginning of the end. Today. A long string of abstract names, announced from a podium. A long string of capped gradguates, filing across the stage to accept a piece of paper. Very bazaar.

To go off on a tangent, the hats they make us where are freakin' sadistic. First of all, as I was looking around during rehearsal yesterday, I noticed that the they look like something from a horrible science fiction film. It wouldn't seem out of place for a flying saucer (hanging on fishing line) to ascend from the heavens and scoop up the robed, capped crowd to be taken for anal probing and what have you. That's not even to mention to goddamn tassle. Whoever decided to make it part of the ceremony to attatch a little annoying bunch of string on the side of the hat, so it whips you in the face whenever you turn your head is a real jerk. The whole thing is ridiculous. End tangent.

I strikes me funny to think that next year I'll have an entirely new set of friends. On one hand it is extremely exciting to think about. The concept of reinvention has always fascinated me. Next year, if I care enough, I can be an entirely different person and no one that I interact with will ever know me as anything else. To my friends back in Rochester I will always be what I am now, but, if I want, that Tim can end forever. I'm not even implying that I don't like any particular part of myself or my personality. It's just extremely exciting to know that I'm not locked into anything anymore. On the other hand (getting back to the original parallelism here), I've known some of the people I'm going to say good bye to for an absurdly long time. I can't even begin to remember all the things we've gone through over the years. And although it feels like we're all growing into very different places sometimes, I still feel like it was a good ride. A crazy adventure, if you will.

And the funny thing is, there was no point in any of our minds (I think) that we even considered trying to stay together in the same general area. Considering how close we've been over the years it seems strange that that was never a factor in our college search at all. As a matter of fact, biased as my opinion on this may be, we may take the cake for the most geographically seperated group of close friends from school this year. Dan and I are the geographically closet of all of us and we're going to opposite sides of the state. Kevin and Eric are off to Texas and Arizona, respectively. Tony is off to God knows where. Of the extended group you've got Schreiber and Heyman going to Geneseo together. A bunch of guys going to RIT. But of the crazy guys who spent all those numerically-indiscernible nights with me aruging, laughing, exploring, creating, et cetera -- we are freakin' spread out.

I'm just wondering, not accusing, of course, but why didn't we ever have that conversation? We never even discussed the idea of staying close. Obviously, I was pretty set in my desire to go to New York City, but it just seems awkward that we never talked about it. I don't think things would've turned out any differently. As a matter of fact, I'd bet money on it, but we should've talked. We have a lot of history and all that. And now that's just what it is. History. Bittersweet, I suppose. This sounds like an episode of Boy Meets World.

I don't know if I'm the only one of us that feels this way, but I don't think all those arguments were in vain. I know no one ever changed their position in the course of a discussion, no matter what anyone said, but I feel like in the longterm we've all shaped each others personalities and opinions more effectively than school or our parents or whatever.

Ah, whatever. That's life.

Woo! Go Class of '06. Ahem.