GRADUATED

Yesterday was quite the milestone.

Five years ago yesterday, I graduated from Auburn University.

That was SUCH a hard point in my life. Graduation and entering the real world was just icing on the cake. Without getting into too much detail, for those of you that are new around here, I will sum it up like this: within a 30 day window, my grandmom died very unexpectedly, I found out my dad was getting remarried, I graduated and then moved back home into my newly-dating mother's house. If you want to keep going, within a year from that time, I moved to Tennessee, God and everybody got married and I had another grandparent pass away.

Yet in light of all of that, Graduation Day was such a good and happy day for me. I had friends praying that it would be nothing less. I think somehow I knew deep down inside that it would be one of the last truly happy days I had coming for a while. I can't look at these pictures without getting teary, not because of that, but just because I know how quickly these smiles faded after the cap and gown was turned in, the graduation gifts were unwrapped and I took that left turn onto 280, away from my childhood and towards my new future.

There is so much I want to tell that girl. I just want to hug her. Nothing will ever be the same, dear, but it will get better - not all at once, but piece by piece, you will heal.