It’s Graduation Season

I can finally give the advice I never, ever would have listened to.

I’ve been waiting for this…

I am excited that very soon I will have an excuse to provide advice to three young women that are my nieces and goddaughter. This advice is guidance that I never would have listened to as a young woman. And yet I will still provide it, as unsolicited and maybe even unappreciated as it may be.

Before my oh-s0-wise words are expressed, I really want to recognize their graduations as the incredibly momentous occasions that they are. I admire tremendously the spirit and sense of identity that seems to course through my three graduate nieces (one from college; two from high school). Surviving highschool may have been my most impressive achievement — or at least the achievement that required the most healing of wounds. My nieces are young but they have already proven their grit — I know this because they all have strong personalities that are unquestionably theirs and theirs alone. It is no easy feat to keep you the you that you meant to be in a world that includes the girl gangs that have been part of female adolescence for time immemorial.

And then I want to give them the words that reflect my own lessons learned. If my 47-year old aunt had given me advice when I was a teenager, I would have ignored it (unless I agreed with it, in which case I would have used it as ammunition if any other adult disagreed with me — teenagerhood comes with a high degree of manipulative sophistication). If any of these three young women are even a little bit like me, they will want to make their own decisions. They will politely (even sincerely) thank me for my words. And then go on to live life where — if something is dangerous or unwise — they want to find out on their own. They won’t take my word for it. Frankly, I applaud this. And I suppose (grudgingly) that this is the right result — you can hardly experience life walking along the path someone else carefully paved for you (not if you want to enjoy life anyway). And I want them to experience the life that is their path — dangerous dips and gorgeous vistas all included.

And yet I still am looking forward to writing a letter to each of them. I admire the spirit and sense of identity that seems to course through my three graduate nieces (one from college; two from high school). But I also know that their transition from young women to women will inevitably mean a few cuts and bruises on their spirit (I hope desperately that they suffer no greater injury than that). These injuries may well turn into gifts because the process of healing leads to something newer and stronger. But I do want to keep at least the worst evils of this world well away. The challenge for me is to try to protect them while not taking away the gift of letting them fall (because meeting our challenges head on and winning let’s us feel like warrior-queens and that is the best feeling ever).

I don’t have guidance for managing the perils of life; I am still working on that myself. But I do have unique advice for each niece — advice for her only and for her uniquely. These words exist because I see the young woman she has become and I know that she will face unique challenges — and unique opportunities — because of the specialness that is hers. The fact that a teenager might ignore our advice, deem it the rantings of old age or just plain ridiculous doesn’t mean, at least in my view, that we don’t give it. They are way too special to let anything get in the way.

Because the time when you suddenly face the world on your own terms is also a time when you face the world by yourself in a way you never have before. You may have fantasized about this day for years, but excitement and pride doesn’t eliminate fear. My nieces may be sure my advice is outdated and stems from a complete misunderstanding of the world they live in. But they will also know that someone cares about them enough to make the effort, however misguided.

If you have a young person in your life, you want to protect them from the falls you suffered, all the pain that you now know was self-inflicted. You want to warn them of the dangers ahead. But you also want to make sure they see all the opportunities waiting for them. Because you know it is way too easy to miss the best thing ever while you are busy proving that you can achieve the worst thing ever.

I know that my advice will, in all likelihood, be put aside in some drawer and later lost when the dorm room or apartment is left for the next one. (It will happen this way because I will provide my advice in a written letter, which itself will probably be viewed as archaic — don’t I know we have iPhones and Airdropping these days?). But I hope they will each remember some day — on a day when it matters — that I care about the women they are and the women they will become. That I hope their lives are exceptional in every way. That they are superstars and never, ever should feel guilty that they are as great as they are.

Finally, I want each of them to know that I will love them as the superstars they are even at the moments when their life looks nothing like a superhero movie but instead looks a lot more like a tragedy. That I will see her as a star when she screws it all up (because yes, you will, my lovely heroines, have a day when you at least feel like you screwed it up — and maybe you even did). On that day, they will most likely have long ago forgotten what I said in that silly letter (“isn’t in a box at my parents?” she wonders), but they might recall that I loved them enough to write one.

I watched Roseanne Gay’s video on writing the other day and she said to think about what you want your reader to feel or think about because of your writing. Well, as graduation season is upon us, I hope that every adult that has a young person who is celebrating this once in a lifetime accomplishment takes a moment to acknowledge it. Maybe in a letter or maybe by the iPhone video that I am too hopelessly traditional to use.

Do you remember highschool? Add the bullying power of social media and the photo filter pressure on perfection to whatever you remember. That makes me at least want my first words to be “you are stronger than I could ever imagine being.” These incredibly strong young people deserve to know we are here when, as will happen more than is fair, their strength is tested. And then tested again.

The short version? Love your graduate with everything you have. She might not need — and indeed not want — you today. But she will need — and very much want — you on a tomorrow that will come too soon.

Happy Graduation To the Superstars You Are Today And the Masterpieces You Will Be one Tomorrow!