Shortened high school career comes to a close

Posted by devon minnema on May 31, 2012 in Telegram Past News

This morning, I awoke to a quiet house, which is extremely rare in my life. Turns out my mom was still sleeping and my dad was enjoying reading the newspaper, a far cry from the usual hurricane of action that is most mornings. When my mother got up, I was almost ready to go off to school. She sauntered over to hug me in her pre-coffee state and that was when it started. She started crying.

This is typical, I think to myself. After all, I’m about to graduate high school, which is the first in a series of events that will result in my moving out of the house and into the Humboldt State University dorms come August. Plus it doesn’t help that my mother is a very emotional human being and is infamous for crying during some of the Super Bowl Commercials. Even though I knew this kind of behavior was looming on the horizon, it still throws me off to see my mom welling up when I left for school and my dad gazing at me in contemplation while I work. I am the youngest in my family so this is a lifestyle change for them just as much as it is for me.

My parents and I have always had a good relationship.I didn’t have the rebellious phase that lots of teenagers have and the only reasons my grades ever faltered was because I was overloading my schedule with Chamber of Commerce mixers, business meetings, and Young Americans for Liberty events.

My brother and sister, who are 16 and 13 years older than me, respectively, both had the option of graduating early but decided to stay for an extra year and take a 0-4 of easy classes. Younger brother of course had to buck the system and actually go through with it, which was not always easy.

Taking college classes was a lot easier in the long run, but often meant staying up at night with the door closed and just the laptop on and writing essays while my parents thought I was sleeping. My mother was always very strict about me getting to bed on time so I could get enough sleep, while my dad was more content to let me stay up and work if it meant I was ready for the next day of school.

Then there was the social implications of graduating early and walking with an adoptive class. Many of my peers didn’t believe me when I told them I was graduating early, and despite the hundreds of times that I explained my intent to graduate early.

Even now, though, graduation doesn’t seem a moment early. I always simply perceived graduation in three years to be something inevitable. I had set my life on that course and I never had the desire to stay for a fourth year. It’s not that I disliked high school or anything, its just that I am done here and now ready for the next phase of my life; Humboldt State University.

I hugged her while she still did the “proud-mom cry” until she was done, keeping one eye on the clock, for 7:10 a.m. was looming and failure to leave the house before then meant detention at lunch in Mrs. Lobo-Smithson’s class. If this is what she does when I’m graduating, what’s it going to be like when go to move out?