Well seniors, it’s finally here: the end. Way to go guys, we made it. Take the time to put down the paper and take a victory lap if you want. Yeah, that felt good, didn’t it? We’re just a short while away from putting on our shiny green caps and gowns and getting our diplomas down at D.A.R. Constitution Hall (For all of you non-seniors, this article’s going to pick up soon, I promise.)

Graduation, as I said, is the last step in the walk through high-school. For some it seems more like a quick, brisk run. For others it seems like a slow crawl through thumbtacks going up the down elevator. It’s been a walk which has taken most all of us through times of fun, embarrassment, teenage awkwardness, stickiness and most importantly, deep, endless, unforgiving shame.

But on Graduation Day, when all the graduating seniors of ’09 are ready to go out and make their mark on the world are gathered together in the nation’s capital wearing all our bright robes, shiny shoes and not much underneath, what is next to come? Once we take off our cap and gown who are we then? Our once solidified identity as the stupid and privileged high-schoolers of Bethesda disappears, and we get left out hanging in the cold.

Before we take our caps off of our collegiate heads and cast aside our gowns we will take our first steps towards a new life. All of a sudden it doesn’t matter too much who went to what party and who had the best football team. All of a sudden things look different. Things get smaller. The roads you drove, the sidewalks you walked and that were your world, they meld into a bigger picture. Even your letterman jacket looks a little less flashy from its place in the closet than it did that night you scored more than a touchdown.

As an editor, this is my last chance to write something that will go out and be read by however-many hundred people will pick up the paper off the floor of Walter Johnson. So I choose my words carefully.

Do something big. This is the only time of your life where you can be truly and wholly free. Go travel. Get away. Find out who you are. See Europe. See the Indo. Build homes in New Orleans, in Africa. Help others because that is the biggest thing a person can do. Chase something. Give something your all. Stop something. Start something.

Or don’t do anything. Enjoy these years.