Can I admit that I both love and hate graduation? Maybe not graduation itself, but this time of year.
First, the negatives. This has become my busiest season of the year and, boy, do I hate having to work hard. Of course, I’m kidding about the hard work part, but not about how busy things have gotten.
Now, April and May have always been busy in newspaper land. We have to sell and put together our graduation section, which means visiting a lot of great businesses and reaching out to the wonderful folks at our schools. In other words, I spend a lot of time bugging people for things, which is always time consuming and occasionally makes me feel like I’m annoying the entire world. Thankfully, people around here are incredibly supportive of the section and usually get back to me with whatever I need to make it all work.
Then there’s everything else that comes with graduation season: All-Area Academic Team write-ups, scholarships and awards, graduation previews, and coverage of commencements. Yep, been there, done that.
But this year we also have election coverage piled on top of it all. We always have elections, of course, but the timing is different. If you’ve been paying attention, you know all of these elections are happening at the same time this year on June 2 because of new legislation. Ultimately, I think that’s a good thing. Voter turnout should be much better than with standalone special elections. But I’m definitely going to have to get used to squeezing all of that coverage into May.
Candidates have been great about responding to questionnaires, but with several elections happening around the area, I knew I’d have to stagger coverage. Instead, election coverage is running headfirst into graduation coverage and creating the perfect storm.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m happy to run the questionnaires and help inform the public about who is running. That’s an important part of what we do. But again, it involves me bugging a lot of people and hoping they respond in a timely manner. Thankfully, people around here usually come through.
Now for the rosier side of things.
Even though attending graduation commencements is another weekend activity in the line of duty, I find myself smiling through most of them. And if I’m not smiling, I’m often tearing up.
Every year I try to position myself where I can snap photos of emotional parents hugging their newly minted graduates. Sometimes I get so caught up in the moment that I forget to actually take the picture because all the emotions come rushing to the surface, even for me, and I may not know the students all that well.
I haven’t had one of my own children graduate yet, but my oldest niece graduates this weekend, and I’m anticipating some major waterworks. Happy tears and sad tears.
I think the sad tears mostly belong to the parents. Our graduates have so much life ahead of them and so many adventures waiting for them. I hope they’re excited to chase after all of it. Us parents, on the other hand, probably see a door quietly closing. We have to let our children go and trust them to handle life on their own.
Just thinking about my own kids, I have a hard time comprehending ever having to do that.
Hopefully, though, we’re raising them right. Hopefully we’re raising good, solid, decent human beings who will make the best decisions they can. Will they stumble sometimes and make mistakes? Of course. That’s part of being human. As parents, we also have to realize we need to let them stumble once in a while.
But hopefully, for the most part, they’ll succeed and fly.
That’s my wish for all of the area graduates.
So while I keep my head down and try to plow through the next few weeks, I’ll try to focus on the happy moments instead of getting bogged down by the workload and simply enjoy watching our local young people take their next step forward.
And after June 2, if you stop by the office, there’s still a decent chance you’ll find me lying in a comatose state on the couch in our meeting room.
