Young people.
Six years ago at this time you probably found your 12-year-old self comfortably plodding around in your pajamas at home while you pretended to pay attention “in class” via Zoom while your parents, if they were lucky enough, worked from home in another room. Or, if they were considered an “essential worker” they donned a cloth face covering and ventured out into COVID to clean up after other people, or cook their food or bag their groceries.
Or, at 19 years of age, you may have been one year removed from high school trying to find the time and money to pursue your college education when the world came to a screeching stop and the bright future promised was in serious jeopardy.
Now look at you. Ready to wear a cap and gown as you collect your diploma from the Sweetwater Union High School District or sit on the field in DeVore for the last time (first?) before embarking on a nursing career or pursuing advanced education. You are older now. You are here.
I state the obvious as an admonishment to your young minds that time passes. And somehow with each new day it goes a little more quickly. Maybe someday one of you future physicists can explain to the rest of us how that works.
One day you will find yourself at a holiday table surrounded by people who think 9 p.m. is an unfathomably late time to get ready to go out and before you know it you will be one of the ones that thinks sweats and a t-shirt on the couch at 9 o’clock are a perfect late night activity.
One day you will tease the elders who groan when they struggle to get up from the couch and the next you will gasp when you hear the familiar sound, realizing you are the only one in the room.
One day you will catch a glimpse of your father or mother as the person they were before they accepted that title and the next it will dawn on you that they are genuinely and irreversibly old.
One day not long ago you were a kid trying to figure out how you were going to survive some of the scariest times of your young life. And now you are here, ready—or not—to tackle what comes your way. Time carried on. And so will you. Make the most of it. In happiness and peace.
