Graduation is coming!

by Denise Novaky on 06/01/13

Dear Nick:

It's almost a year since the day your high school class, Mt. Olive graduates of 2012, received their diplomas.  Your friends told me that the graduates and everyone in the audience gave you an overwhelming standing ovation.  The year has flown so quickly; your friends have a year of post-high school real-life bliss under their belt.  I started thinking about the advice I could give them.

My own journey through and after Mt. Olive High School has been, hmmm, how can I explain this?  Well, it's been 37 years since I donned the MOHS graduation gown with honor society cord (yuppers!) and threw my cap in the air.  Since that time, I pursued :

a) that which I needed for my chosen career (My advice: yes, in the beginning it is frustrating and I thought the frustration would never end. Hang in there, the frustrating part where you feel like a total imposter and have no idea what you're doing will pass. Trust me);

b) opened and maintained my own business (I was horribly fearful of leaving a paying job as an employee. My friends said, "build it and they will come." Frightened out of my mind, I did and they did and the rest is history. Do not let your fear stop you from a reasonable plan. It should stop you, hopefully, from an unreasonable plan. Don't know the difference? Ask someone. I did.)

 c) lived the life of married with children.  (Having someone with whom to share a life is DEFINITLY better than the alternative.  However, make sure you choose wisely.  Do-overs are messy and expensive.)

d) did the working-mother thing (yeah! When Indira Ghandi was a working mom with small children she said something about worrying about home when at work and worrying about work when at home.  THAT JUST ABOUT SUMS IT UP. Try not to enter working motherhood until you've got as many reinforcements in place as possible!)

e) experienced the day my children, my chicks, left the brood.  Whether to heaven or an apt in Hackettstown, both a transition to empty-nest.  (My advice to those young women who cannot even see the distant future of their empty-nest-hood:  DEVELOP HOBBIES EARLY.  Nick, do you remember how you and Ben would say that my hobbies were a category to themselves? I tried roller skating, wood burning, photography, beading, gardening and tons more I cannot recall now.  They were all fun and I come in/out of all of them, except roller skating :(, even now.  Empty nest? No problem.  I have more ideas of things to try than hours in the day.) 

With all the above said, there is one truth that I've found to be absolute without any doubt.  The friends I met at Mt. Olive High School are my life-long friends.  We may have had some separation time while the post-high school-bliss ran its course, but they always remained my true friends.  We grew up together.  We know each other. We trust each other. And, in my darkest of days, they were there and did not leave.

So, to the Mt. Olive graduates of the past and the future, my wish is that you will also know the depth of friendship that is not bound by time or space.

Forever the mom of Nick and Ben.