Dear Graduate,
It’s your special day.
A new chapter in this thing we call life.
You may be a fresh 18-year-old ready to find your place in the world. Or, a college grad, at any age, ready to take a new adventure.
If I have to give you any piece of advice as you embark on this new journey…
Life does not go according to plan but you end up where you are meant to be.
My plan
I think back to my graduation day. I was so excited to start college and thought I had my whole life figured out - marry my high school sweetheart, become an elementary teacher and have lots of babies by like 25.
Spoiler alert: None of those things happened.
My first year I came home every single weekend to see my then-boyfriend, who I didn’t end up with. Not to mention I was extremely homesick and missed a lot of my close friends.
I would sit on the phone with my best friend, Melinda, in between classes every day because she was all the way across the state. Luckily, she moved to my college town the next year.
It took me almost three years to figure out I was in the wrong major. I switched majors but still am doing a job different than I had planned.
After my graduation from college, I did get a job with a newspaper and loved it. However, my self esteem and love life was a dud.
At 23, I was nowhere close to the life I have now with my husband, two kids and a beautiful home. I lived in a one bedroom apartment attached to my newspaper office, working all crazy hours to pay off those student loans.
Fast forward to my job now that is not in journalism, and because of COVID, I work from home. That is not at all what I had planned.
The reason my advice is to, essentially, expect the unexpected, is because each time I graduated I had this idea in my head but it’s not even close to reality.
Don’t stop dreaming
Even if things don’t go as “planned,” I definitely encourage you to dream.
Dream BIG.
Those dreams can become reality. It just may not look like the reality you planned.
Dreams can’t show you what life is going to be like because life is so much more than you could have dreamed.
My reality
The best things happen when you least expect it.
I met my husband in my college town when I wasn’t even living there. I just happened to go out with a friend one night.
I found out I was pregnant when I just started looking to buy a home because I wanted to have a baby. I never thought that I would be moving at 4 months pregnant.
And then for my baby No. 2 moving again to a brand new city. I never would have thought I would be living in this small town and in the country but I love it.
Life is full of twists and turns, dear Graduate. Take it all in. Keep growing and learning. Keep building confidence in yourself.
Congratulations! You did it. You made it one step, one day, further into your life.
But remember, every day is a reason to celebrate.
Stay simply confident,
Kayla