Saturday, June 24, 1995 was not the worst day of my life. I did not crumble under the weight of the injustice of it all. I did not make a spectacle of myself, drowning in tears in front of the world to see. Nor did I retreat to bed and pull the covers over my head, rejecting the world of my peers. I graduated.
It was not awful. I did not sit there listening to speeches given by peers (most of whom I can't even call acquaintances) and fight an endless soliloquy in my head, declaring that their cares were silly and that they knew little of what I'd been through. I was relieved that although I felt older than them, I didn't experience the thoughts which I'd feared would mark me as a self-absorbed and unkind person. I wasn't overwhelmed by my sense of being different.
But, I did feel grief at not having had a "normal", happy high school experience. My 5 years were not filled with events linking me to my classmates and leading to long friendships with them. Rather, they were increasingly frightening, lonely, and challenging to my sense of self. Looking back at high school and reliving those years was scary. I felt as if I'd been dragged back in time to ancient pains, ones which I wished to dismiss and forget.
In the weeks before graduation, I grew bitter and afraid. I didn't wish to revisit my early years with CFIDS; I wasn't strong enough for that, at least not at this time when every other student's celebration seemed to remind me of how different I was from my peers. My classmates were beginning new adventures, with their assumptions that hard work would yield rewards and happiness mainly still intact. I was wondering if I should give up on my dream of becoming well someday. The contrast was obvious, and it was taking most of my strength just to fight off jealousy.
It was clear to me that the present time was as much as I could deal with, so when I began finding retrospective thinking nearly unavoidable, I began to worry. Revisiting my past with CFIDS was *not* a good idea, and I did my utmost to resist it. But as Graduation Day neared, I began to wonder if its symbolism would push me over the edge. Would the experience be so solemn as to force me to face my old emotions, without any pleasant distractions to serve as excuses for forgetting them once more?
By graduation day I was quite nervous; it was a relief to me that we'd planned to keep our family celebration quiet and small. We made sure to hold it before the ceremony so that if I felt physically or emotionally drained afterwards, I could return home and rest without abandoning my guests. To celebrate with my family and favorite tutor was appropriate and comforting. These people knew what a long road it had been, because they'd been with me every step of the way. But despite their good company, I remained anxious about what might, for me, be a somber and disturbing event.
Apparently graduation has changed since my parents' school days; my classmates came to my rescue and ensured that the experience was nothing like I'd feared it would be! Somewhat to my dismay-- but mostly to my relief-- they behaved horribly during the ceremony. They sang and shouted during speeches, tossed beach balls, and generally disrupted *everything*. No air of symbolism or seriousness was left intact when the guys sitting near me were through. Rather than having to fight off a sense of major life change and possible depression, I was distracted by them (and by the concentration it took for me to sit up) and had very little brain left with which to worry. Instead, I turned my attention to the speeches, followed the beach ball as it made its way above the class of 1995, and listened for my name to be called. A wave of relief washed over me, and it began to sink in that I was finally done with high school.
I am glad that I attended my high school graduation ceremony for several reasons. First of all, it served as a symbolic marker of the change from being an adolescent to being a slightly more autonomous young adult. Because I was homebound during most of high school, and remained mostly homebound afterwards, having that day imprinted in my memory helps me to believe that I really AM older and that something HAS changed in my life.
Secondly, attending graduation was one way in which I refused to let CFIDS make me invisible. I might have missed years of high school, but I was still a person that my classmates should know a little bit about. I chose to declare my existence to my peers by first speaking to the health classes on CFIDS Awareness Day (May 12), and then by attending graduation. I couldn't bear the idea of leaving school without having done something to make myself known to my peers, nor of marking the date of my graduation amongst people who had no idea how much that achievement meant to me. I wanted them to know that despite having battled CFIDS and taken 5 years to complete high school, I was still a human being in their class, deserving the same diploma and sense of community support. The fact that although I couldn't recognize their faces, some of the kids from the health classes knew my name and my story, made a real difference for me. I might have been ill and somewhat confused by the crowd, but there were classmates out there who could recognize me. I felt a sense of kinship with them, and was grateful to not be marking the date alone.
The year since graduation has not been easy, but is has been joyous. I have felt somewhat like the ugly duckling, not able to behave as my peers blossoming at college do. But I have discovered that, as during high school, there are rewards for those who awkwardly find their own, seemingly individual, paths in life. I've found that I'm challenged and inspired by my work with young persons with CFIDS, and that I do not feel cheated.
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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead