Congratulations, Class of 2009. As I sit watching you, I realize it’s been exactly 20 years since me and 12 of my friends were up on that same stage. In 1989, if someone had asked me what it would have been like to graduate in Pender Harbour 20 years before, I might have pictured it in black and white. I’m sure, to you now, that gulf in time is incomprehensible; but it’s eerie how little has actually changed. Even the song crackling through the gym speakers is the same. It’s become a grad ceremony standard but Rod Stewart’s "Forever Young" was a fresh hit the year we graduated. (Just sayin’... we were first.) Your dapper tuxes, the elegant dresses and wedding day hair seem as familiar as last Tuesday but you weren’t even born when I was up there. I even chuckle as Rowen Christie (sharing the valedictorian address with Miranda Snell) smugly ponders his classmates’ future: "In 20 years when we’re old and decrepit... " (Keep up with the cheeky talk and you might not make it that far, sonny boy.) Twenty years from now, you’ll understand how stealthy change can be. How it creeps up on you so incrementally, you won’t even notice it’s there. For a young mind grappling with the mixed emotions of post-exam relief and the bittersweet farewell to childhood — all rolled into one wide-eyed photo op — is significant enough. But this little ceremony is just the party before the journey — a chance for your relatives to wave as you shove off toward adventures waiting past the horizon. There’ll be plenty of time to worry about the future when you get there but just in case you get curious about what’s in store for you, try this. It’s from a book by Robert Pirsig called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: "You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge. And if you project forward from that pattern, then sometimes you can come up with something."
I’ve found it’s as good a trick as any to settle anxiety about the future but it won’t work for a few years yet. If you try right it now, all you’ll see is more Mr. Luporini.
For now, just go out and sample life as if you were grazing in the bulk food aisle — try everything. The pattern for the rest of your life develops as you absorb each new experience ― so don't limit yourself. Overcome any self-consciousness early on that growing up in Pender Harbour might have handicapped you.
It may take awhile but it’s been my experience that, in time, you’ll find the reverse is true. And in 2029, maybe you'll come back for a grad ceremony at your old school where you too will ponder a Rod Stewart song and wonder if it isn’t true.
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