the Commencement Address you will never hear

Yesterday, I (sorta) graduated from college! In response to said event, I thought about what it would be nice to hear and wrote my own commencement address:

Congratulations! After four years (give or take) of hard work, you're finished! Today we are celebrating what you set out to achieve and have achieved. After all of the papers, tests, projects, group projects, presentations, and finals, you're finished! I think we should all take a moment to just take a deep breath.
I hope that you are not living for the future. The future is not just tomorrow, it is here: it is today. It was yesterday. Whether you are going to start a job, go to graduate school, or even if you have absolutely no idea what you are doing after you cross the stage, you are living your future. Make the most of it: enjoy it! Don't worry about what you think the next step is.
Now, I will not welcome you to the real world. Because college is very much the real world. Over the years, many of you have taken out huge amounts of loans, paid bills, worked jobs, lived paycheck to paycheck, learned to budget your money, and, hopefully, your time. These are all realities of the real world, that some would have you believe you are only just entering. Yes, life is about to change no matter what your post grad plans are, but I believe college has prepared you, in some way for your future.
Don't forget where you came from. Be proud of where you came from. People may judge you, but don't let them put you in a box. Don't allow them to nullify everything you have worked for. People are going to discount you. They are going to judge you because of your sex, your age, your gender, where you come from. They are going to tell you what you should do and what you can't do. My hope is that as you go into the post-grad world, your mantra will be: "Don't believe me; just watch."
Don't live to please or appease others. Yes, sometimes life requires those things. And it feels good to be validated by others. But don't live for that validation. Someone is always going to think they know better than you. Older siblings arw never going to forget they are older than you. Find your passion, your dream. And go get it! Take risks and make mistakes. Live! I promise you, if they have stood by you this far through the experiment of college, they will stand by you through the journey of life. It is your journey, other people's "shoulds" cannot guide you, you must follow the compass of your own heart. There will be times where your loved ones think you should be doing something else; recite your mantra to them: "don't believe me; just watch."

NaPoWriMo: Finishing Up!

Obviously NaPoWriMo has been over for a few days now, how sad! Unfortunately, I had a lot of things going on so I was unable to finish at the time. But I am just going to go ahead and do my last two posts right here, right now! Also, I want to thank Maureen Thorson for running napowrimo.net and any fellow NaPoWriMo-ers who visited my blog, read, commented, encouraged, creeped, what have you. All because of NaPoWriMo, my pageviews on my little unappreciated blog skyrocketed and that was very exciting for me! I also got my first ever review of any of my work (another thank you to Maureen for being so kind and featuring my blog early on). It has been a wonderful experience to write poems regularly and to read other people's poems. Hopefully, I will keep up the habit of writing poems frequently because it can be very cathartic and calming to me. Without further ado:


Day 29
Prompt: Write a Review Poem

Napowrimo.net
provides a poetry prompt each day in April
provides a poetry resource each day in April
features a participating poet each day in April.
It was quite an enjoyable thing
To see others my praises sing
(That isn't very humble of me...)
It was quite a challenging thing
To create a new poem to bring
To respond to the new prompt each day
It helps poets, novices and masters, alike
To refine their art
It creates a modern community
To make sure there is no discontinuity
In poetry being written
And encouragement being given
An enjoyable experience indeed
NaPoWriMo.net, I give you five stars
Forever in your debt,
Sharon


Day 30
Prompt: Write a poem backwards (oh no.... so for this poem, you will want to read from the bottom up, although it might be interesting to read from top down, we shall see)

Goodbye
I think its time we said
But really
I never wanted to hurt you
My love does not spontaneously combust
But it can't
So we can start where we left off
You just want the fire to burn brightly
You don't want to try to ignite a spark
But you aren't willing to try and start fresh
To the kind that refuses to go out
It might grow from a small slow fire
And cared for,
Provided with fuel,
Protected,
Perhaps a spark, could relight it
Like the ashes of a fire, the embers long burnt out
But inside my feelings are all dead
That you believe I love you too
That you see us together
You say you love me
So that a fresh piece of wick could be lit
The wax would need to be cut off
The wick is too low and burnt to be lit anymore
I am like a candle that has burned too hot for too long
And cold to such feelings
It turns mute
A burned heart does not want to speak the language of love
But I have been burned too much before
I can tell what you want
By the look in your eyes
You say
"Hello"


I think it works reading either way, but it makes a smidge more sense if you read from the bottom up.

Fare-thee-well NaPoWriMo,

Sharon