Graduating at LaGuardia Airport

I’ve always been the type to cram every last activity in as short of a time as possible. I also have the tendency to try to grasp normalcy subconsciously knowing I will never obtain it. Life slapped me across the face with a reality check while I was sitting in New York City’s LaGuardia Airport on June 13th.

I had received a $10,000 scholarship from the Anne Frank Foundation the day prior. I was taking a plane back home with my aunt to throw my cap in the air and get a piece of paper I have worked 14 years towards. It was 2:30pm and I should have been walking with my classmates onto a field we hadn’t won a single football game on. The plane arrived at the terminal and I quickly tweeted a photo “Coming home for graduation just in time!” What a jinx. We loaded onto the small jet plane and of course our seats are across the aisle from the bathrooms. I began to put on my make up and fix my hair so I could be ready when we landed back at home. It was now 3:00pm and the flight attendant began the safety instructions. As she waved her arms in the air demonstrating how to use an oxygen mask, I looked out of the window smiling. “It’s finally over. I will officially be a college student and will embark on a fresh start, hopefully finding people like me at college.” The captain made an announcement that we would be waiting for a bit longer to take off and to hold tight. I decided it was an appropriate time to take a nap. An hour later I woke up to the captain checking in with us and explaining that there are storms that have to pass before we would leave and I begin to get anxious about making it home in time. Another 30 minutes later he regretfully says that we will have to return back to the terminal until the sky clears. Just like the rain standing in the way of one of the most important events in my life, my eyes burst into tears and I began shaking. “Why can’t I just be a normal kid like everyone else?” I asked myself. I sit in the back of the plane sobbing until the flight attendant ushers me out of the plane. As I pass the cockpit I peak my head in and try to find a way for the pilots to get me home and they aren’t able to help me at all. Now I am at the flight gate sobbing to the young woman with bad shoes and frizzy hair who is not interesting in my issue in the least bit told me that everyone is experiencing issues getting to their destinations. “Seriously? Them missing dinner is not nearly as critical as me missing the only high school graduation I will ever have” I though. The flight agents explained that my only option was to get a flight for the morning. Great. My whole life I knew I was never anything like my peers but I’m seriously missing graduation the one chance I can be uniform with everyone else. Graduates either wear blue or white. No exceptions. Everyone’s name is called the same way. We get closure of this chapter in our lives. We come together one last time as a family.

It isn’t until the next day that I wake up in a friend’s apartment in Manhattan and realize this was never meant to be my path. The bubble I had grow up in had burst. It wasn’t in my character to wear blue or white. I was the girl that would have worn a tie dye cap and gown. I had fought the first 18 years of my life against something that had always been inevitable. This is who I am. I am the girl that would get stuck in New York City rather than graduating with a class that she had been so involved in. Normalcy was never in the plans for me and I am only now accepting and embracing it.