*this* time, a recap of *everybody's* graduation ceremony

Well, the "commencement" - of what, I know not - certainly, though, it's the ending of this "war", at least for those of us who will have graduated this year, but, anyway, that ceremony was this morning/afternoon, on a floor that I was actually already somewhat familiar with, given that the Devils routinely held "draft parties/equipment sales" way back when, into the earliest years of the Prudential Center, before either eliminating such events entirely, or simply heavily restricting them; my point is, though, was that that night in late June of I-don't-even-remember-which-year-anymore (although it was definitely post-2007, given that the building opened then...) was vastly different from this late morning/early afternoon, which was, arguably, "the beginning of the end", in a sense, since the vast majority of people end up doing things even more differently than the typical post-secondary/"youth" career/higher education/military/"trade" school(s) split for decades afterward, instead of still going through the "educational" stages of their lives - while nothing seems "constant" after one's early 20s (on average, or at least I think that's the case...), maybe I've been too concentrated on my own future recently to look at "the bigger picture", and see that maybe things won't remain as "uncertain" as they currently seem going forward!

Now that the "commencement" ceremony, which, disappointingly/surprisingly, included neither the "cap toss" that usually concludes similar ceremonies, nor this, in my admittedly biased opinion, has come and gone, I acknowledge in advance that this might seem like me "burning bridges" at this level, to an extent, after (some of) the events of these past few years, instead of the ones prior to recently, but I figured I would tell you more about my the evening of my high school graduation being vastly different from this morning, and that I did actually have that "support group" that I so dearly desired this time around, only to end up lacking in the end, if you will, once; the problem with that was that "group" that had essentially formed over the course of years prior to me graduating high school essentially instantly "faded away", since, as I mentioned multiple times recently, we all started "growing apart" from each other by then, and, as my undergraduate years progressed, only increasingly "vanished" after providing an "emotional high", of sorts, around the time of that graduation ceremony that ended up lasting up until sunrise the following morning (Friday evening -> Saturday morning), to end up being replaced by "new" people, who I would only end up seeing maybe dozens of times, instead of hundreds, or possibly even up into the thousands, in the cases of those people I had met in, say, middle school or earlier; that is to say, while I still felt "small" in comparison/contrast to the "special occasion" that was graduating on the local high school football field here (not in the old Meadowlands Arena, as, ironically, the following year's graduating class in my district got to do, since the stadium here started getting renovated between those two (6/28/13; 6/27/14) ceremonies; those lucky SOB's...), with hundreds (800+, to be exact...) of other students, as generations here had previously done, and many future generations will keep doing, at least then, I honestly wasn't feeling nearly as "lonely" as I have just within these past few months, since, again, I, and many others, had built up "groups" over years that ended up having that one thing, at least back then, that seems to be in increasingly short supply nowadays - loyalty, without acting all "transient"-like...

I feel though, overall, that that's yet another "spectrum" that exists nowadays - some people tend to enjoy certain parts of their lives more than others; the difference usually ends up being which parts of their lives they end up "enjoying" the most - I think I've told you more than enough times by now, including just above here, that I had more of a "love/hate relationship" over these most recent years than I did prior to then, but, honestly, I feel that it's up to each individual person to mostly extract what they considered to be the "best" moments of each "stage" of their lives - for me, that was far and away my "study abroad" summer, since things like that almost always get "contained" to one's undergraduate years - even then, I almost "tapped out" after just the first week, since I remember getting extremely "homesick" then; overall, though, I can't say I would've even gotten close to this point, never mind surpassing it, without moments like those helping "guide" me forward through (back then) future challenges!

Anyway, despite the various complaints I made earlier this month, on various fronts, I'll acknowledge just as much for my own sake as anybody else's that 99.99% of life honestly remains the same except for what happened this morning/afternoon, tell you for the official last time now, at least in my undergraduate years, to "stay tuned" for whatever the heck will end up happening in the foreseeable future, and tell you that overall, I'd say that I feel no less "accomplished" by now than most graduates; just like many, yourself included, lest I forget, who preceded this year, the many others who also reached this point in recent years, and many future generations of "young adults", nothing will be able to remove these accomplishments/degrees/diplomas/titles/etc. from any of us at any point in the future!