So many happy little faces out there graduating this year. My son is "graduating" to the next level in pre-school. Can you believe they actually have caps and gowns that small? Graduation is exciting, and a little scary, not knowing what life will throw at you in the coming years. For parents it's usually a sigh of relief that they kept you alive for 18 years. For the student you feel the first real taste of freedom and think "Yeah, I'm free, I'm free!" that is until you realize you're going to work for the rest of your life with one week's vacation and a couple holidays until the day you die. Ha!

High school graduations are fun because of all the parties and relatives stuffing envelopes full of money in your pockets. Sigh — those were the days. I remember my graduation party and how happy I was to feel that great sense of accomplishment and that the drinking age was 19 and I had just turned that and so the parties were boatloads of fun. The promise of life on my own and how I was going to explore it, seize it, and taste the sweet nectar of life. God was I naïve!

My college graduation, getting my bachelors outside of Buffalo, was interesting to say the least. My parents thought I had snapped my cork when I introduced them to some crunchy granola hippy dude and took off on the back of his motorcycle after the ceremony, throwing my and cap and gown off into the road. We went meandering about the country for a few months living out of a tent on the side of the road until the bike broke down in Florida. I got off, spread my arms wide, looked about and said, "Home!!!" I stayed for 3 years — it was the lure of the sun, sand and palm trees. After being in Buffalo for 4 years I figured I needed to thaw out and be a Margaritaville bum before facing reality. The hippie dude continued on to parts unknown, but I don't know how far he got considering he always had trouble telling his left from his right and never mastered being able to turn a door knob. At least I wasn't woken up each morning listening to him continuously trying to shake the door open because he just couldn't figure out it needed to be turned. How he got to 25 years old and not grasp this concept I have no idea.

My Master's degree was very subdued. No bells and whistles, money filled envelopes, or motorcycle bad boys. Just went silently into the night and hoped it would make a difference monetarily in climbing the corporate ladder of my 30's….. Hahahahahaha…. I can't even say that with a straight face. I just want to throw my fists up in frustration and yell "Stella!!" like Brando in A Streetcar named Desire. Oy! Then just when I finally finished paying off that student loan my father started in with, "So, when are you going for your doctorate?" I almost spit out my teeth at that one considering today's unemployment and being one step away from a high school kid flipping burgers at McDonald's, never mind.

So now in my ripe old 40's I am faced with my 25th High School Reunion party coming up next month. Twenty-five years later and still celebrating that graduation. Oh how it all comes full circle, doesn't it? So what have I learned in 25 years? Those square caps when thrown in the air will inevitably smack you in the eye leaving you looking like a battered housewife. You can use the gown for a Halloween costume at a frat house party. All the money you got from graduation was pretty much blown on Coors Light and midnight pizzas. Those snobby perky cheerleaders that snubbed you in high school are now morbidly obese, pumping gas for a living with eight kids by different fathers and no teeth left in their heads. The time in 11th grade when you split your pants open and everyone saw your rainbow underpants suddenly doesn't seem like the horrendously embarrassing social tragedy it was 25 years ago. The incredibly hot quarterback that you begged God to notice you is now a bald plumber picking his nose, and farting as he leans over your kitchen sink exposing his butt crack. That no matter how many graduations you have you still have to work your butt off to make a buck and it all goes to your kids and some dude named FICA in the end.

So for all you kids out there looking for advice for the future: try your best to succeed and have fun doing it. If you fall flat on your face now and again just re-group and get back out there and try again. Remember — slow and steady wins the race. Suddenly in the blink of an eye 25 years will have just gone by and you can't remember hardly any of it. Oh — and when you do look back you'll be kicking yourself when you realize that prior to graduating was the real time when you were "free."