Clad with my freshly ironed gown and crooked cap, I followed as my senior class lined themselves in a perfect row, lead into the gymnasium where our families and friends waited in anticipation.

Everything was in slow motion. I looked around as the class of 2015 grasped their friends’ hands and gathered together in group hugs for pictures. I heard an orchestra of sniffles and a couple of “this isn’t goodbye’s”. As I looked around, I saw tear soaked eyes and faces twisted in order to avoid tears.

Yet, there I stood. I wasn’t sad. My eyes had never felt so dry. My stomach wasn’t twisted in bittersweet anticipation. And I wondered if something was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I cry? Did I hate high school? No. I had friends. I had made memories in those halls. I loved my teachers and staff. But I wasn’t sad. I didn’t cry at my high school graduation. Not before, not crossing that stage, and not after. Was I just heartless? Was I numb? Had it just not hit me yet? What was wrong with me?

Nearly two years later, I finally understand that I wasn’t heartless. Nothing was wrong with me. I just knew that even then… this was just the beginning.

I understood that my life wouldn’t end when that diploma hit my hand. If anything, that diploma wasn’t a diploma in my eyes. It was a baton handed to me as if I was a runner sprinting toward the next chapter of my life. It was the keys to a car with an unlimited tank of gas, as I drove wherever I wanted to go. It was the pen to write an incredible adventure on a crisp, blank page. So why would I cry? Unless they were tears of joy, why cry when someone is handing you opportunity, change, and a new beginning for myself?

When they called my name and I crossed that stage, it was the first day of the rest of my life.

Graduation day started my journey to who I wanted to be.

That diploma took me from my tiny, four stop-light town to the city. That diploma brought me to a college that challenges me, and encourages me to find out who I am outside of small town politics. That diploma put me on track to a career that I already love. That diploma introduced me to new friends who I now can’t imagine living without. That diploma allowed opportunity to grow in my own direction. That diploma gave me my beginning.

Yes, even nearly two years later, sometimes things remind me of high school. I could never truly forget it, and I’d never want to. I remember the laughter between classes and the honest advice from my teachers about the real world. I remember the McDonald’s we went to nearly every day Senior Year and how everyone crowded together in the stands for football games. I remember how I felt when I was fixing my makeup for Senior prom and how terribly I danced on the dimly lit dance floor surrounded by my friends. I remember being discouraged when I didn’t do well as I though I would on a paper, or celebrating when I passed that impossible exam. I remember pacing in the guidance office as we completed those college applications and praying that the good Lord would bless us with some scholarship money. I remember those four stop-lights and seeing everyone you knew at Walmart. Yes, I remember high school.

But I still don’t cry.

That’s the beauty of high school… it’s just another chapter in your book. And if you keep re-reding the last chapter of your life, how can you possibly start the next chapter of your exciting novel? High school is my past, and that’s okay. Because I know those memories, that place, made me who I am, and led me on the beautiful journey I am on now. And had I stayed in high school forever, I wouldn’t be who I am today and who I’m becoming.

Somehow, deep down in my gut that June day in 2015, I knew that. So I strode across that stage, dry-eyed, and full of promise, because I knew the best was yet to come.