Commencement Speech

This is the speech I had the opportunity and privilege to give at my high school graduation last month.

The theme given to us for this year’s graduation is “We fly high.” I chose the word “given” carefully because like many things in our past twelve years of school, this theme was given to us. We’ve been fortunate to have family members, administration, and teachers pushing our development forward to get us to where we are today. Tomorrow, when we walk out the school gates for the last time that aid is over. We are adults now. If we are going to progress and move forward any more in our lives it will be up to us to make that happen.

Our theme of “we fly high” certainly has the potential to be true, but it will not be for all of us. It is our choice to either fly or fall.

A few years ago I found myself falling fast. A battle with anxiety and depression was controlling my life and threatening my ability to graduate on time. The days I was not in school outnumbered the days that I was. Thankfully my amazing family and a few great teachers helped me be able to succeed. I've learned a lot from the past four years here at Independence and I found that the most important lessons did not come from within the pages of textbooks. The time I spent in AVID taught me that if I wanted to advance I had to do it through my own individual determination and the Forensics program and my amazing coaches taught me how to speak and be heard. Those are the lessons I will forever carry with me.

Life is not meant to be easy. Growing hurts, but we each have it within us to soar. When an obstacle presents itself go around it, climb over it, crawl under it if you have to but move past it and you will fly high.