I Can't Keep It Inside

So, I'm sure y'all know this is graduation season. I just went to my second tonight and my third is coming up on Saturday. I don't know what it is about me, but events like showers and graduations are just not my thing. I think it goes back to my short attention span. And hey, we all know that graduations can, well, go on a bit.

Tonight I went to an 8th grade graduation. As in, not high school. Or college. 8th Grade. Middle School. 13 Year Olds.

So, yes, the ceremony was long, a bit boring, and just a little over-sentimental. All that was to be expected. What I did NOT expect was the melodrama. Seriously. Some of the girls were crying and carrying tissues when they walked in! As the ceremony went on, there were more tears. One of the students gave a speech in which she discussed how the students would never be together again, how much they learned from each other, how she loved each and every one of them, and how their difficulties had brought them together. She used a quote from Susan B. Anthony that made it sound that life was made up of little stray dogs that you couldn't rid of. Huh? Did I mention these kids are 13 and not even in high school yet? Um, yeah.

It got real interesting when two girls sang a song from a Broadway musical about how they've learned so much from their friends which made them better people. You guys, these two girls were almost sobbing by the end of the song. And then, every. single. girl. was wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. The tissue box got passed around to every row. Wooooooooow.

Hey, I remember being 17, graduating from high school and believing (irrationally, I admit) that I knew it all (well, at least *most* of it) and had simply arrived. :) But these 13 YEAR OLDS acted like they reached the end of the road, that life was immeasurably changed, that they would never have any other friends. You know in about a year-- maybe even six months!-- they'll look back and say, "Wow, we really overreacted and over dramatized that whole situation."

Maybe all the girls were on their period.

PS: Congrats to all you grads out there. :) Don't lose perspective.