To Colton on his Graduation Day...

To Colton on his graduation day...if life is an ice cold six pack, you now have 5 bottles to go so drink them down and enjoy the taste of every drop. If you guzzle them down, you'll miss out on the flavor and if you drink them too slowly, they could get warm before you get to finish them. You know I'm totally talking about Root Beer right? Those glass bottles of Root Beer are delicious! I remember when you were born. I was 23 years old and at a bar. Probably on a weeknight because you can do that and still go to work in the morning when you're only 23. Your dad came in briefly and bought everybody in the place a drink and we toasted to you. I was with my boyfriend who later became my husband and then my ex-husband after that. That was 18 years ago and now, you're giving my own teenage son rides to football practice and dropping him off after choir rehearsal. You're graduating today. Where have those years gone? What have I learned and what would I tell my 18 year old self if I could go back in time and whisper in my own ear? What wisdom would I take back from here to my graduation and use to get me through the next 20 or so years? Since I can't change the past, maybe I can help you out a little with the future as you embark on your journey into adulthood...let's begin. Don't wish away your youth. You'll spend your entire adult life wanting it back. Almost everything about being a grown up sucks except for getting to say bad words and being able to drive. I can't even say legally getting to drink in a bar is worth being an adult because the consequences of that are endless. When I look back on my 20 year history with alcohol, there are several occasions when I wish law enforcement would have tossed my drunken butt in jail to protect me from the stupid that I was going to take part in. I was never lucky enough not to remember how I ended up handcuffed to a toilet or walking home in a cheerleading outfit when I was in fact not a cheerleader. Naturally, those days are long over with except for the nightmares. Fall in love a million times but remember two important things: changing your phone number is very inconvenient to a lot of people. (Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this). And, if you think it is inconvenient for a crazy person to have your phone number, imagine for a moment what it would be like for that same crazy person that you can't even tolerate another text or call from to have a living, breathing human being with? This is very scary so pay attention! Be very careful about choosing the person who will be in your life forever because you share a child. I strongly recommend one of those flip chart variety signs that counts the number of "accident free" days for every 18 to 30 year old. The part about being a grown up sucking will become a harsh reality if you have a kid with a nutcase. Pretty sure I don't have to explain to you what to do to stop that from happening...investigate the one you want to spend the rest of your life with very carefully or the rest of your life can end up feeling like a very, very long time. Get a job you love or at least don't hate to get up to go to...everybody has to work, well, except for me because I'm an unemployed genuis waiting for Ellen DeGeneres or Jimmy Fallon to discover me, but everybody else has to work because you need money to pay for your grown up things. It helps a lot if the job you pick is one that you like. If you find that you dread going to work everyday, find something else to do with your life. Take a lot of electives in college, just to make sure you really know what you want to do. Attend college theater performances and art shows just so you can become well rounded and say that you did. In the grown up world, attending that stuff costs a fortune and that's not the time to figure out you don't like art shows and you think theater is boring. Besides, in college, you'll get to see naked chicks and they call it "art." Live in a dorm for one year so you are more sympathetic to people in refugee camps. Communal living does have it's benefits however such as the occasional member of the opposite sex in the wrong bathroom. And, if you run out of something, there's a 95% chance somebody else has it. Plus, every dorm floor has a least one kid who has an overprotective mother who brings food every weekend- make friends with that kid. Always remember where you came from...your friends, your family, your first job, and your high school. You never know when you might need something or someone from that time no matter how successful you become. Last, make memories you can hold on to like the ones your mom and dad and I have...light years before you were born, when your dad roamed the halls of the very same high school you are roaming today, saying hello and greeting everyone like it was his job,and your mom at community college when your mom sat in front of me in Stackpool's Personal and Community Health class- we were your age and had nothing but the future in front of us and odds are, it didn't go as planned but it still turned out ok. Mike Modano and I never got married like I had hoped..I blame the team moving to Texas for that. Oh yeah, and another thing about being a grown up that doesn't suck- bringing another little person into the world, watching them grow, seeing the best of you in them and letting them out in the world and knowing they're going to be extraordinary. I think I can speak for both of your parents when I say they wouldn't have missed watching you from the first time you walked to walking across that stage tonight, and there's so much more to come...Good Luck Colton.