Graduation for grownups

If April showers bring May flowers, then I guess May's final exams must bring June's platitudes.

It's graduation season, the time of year when all we grown-ups - whether we donned our own caps and gowns three years ago or 30 - get the itch to offer sage advice.

We corner relatives and neighbors; heck, we stop that kid bagging our groceries at the Hy-Vee: These are the best years of your life, we say. Try everything! Don't be afraid to make mistakes! We drone on and on, ignoring the poor grads' blank and bored expressions.

We don't even stop when they start to edge away: Find your passion, we holler after them. Balance your checkbook! If you think you can or you can't, you're right! We're like fountains of wisdom gone haywire.

It's not that we're wrong, but that it's just too much. The kids only cleaned out their lockers a couple days ago. They haven't even washed their gym clothes yet, and here we are grilling them about The Future.

Still, it's hard to resist.

The truth is, and grads know it, that graduation makes us a little wistful.

Sitting in the high school gym, looking out at that sea of impossibly young adults, you think back to your own commencement - the endless repetition of Pomp and Circumstance, the school official droning on about how you were the future, or you had to seize the day, or something.

You didn't need anyone to tell you back then about your potential - your skin could barely contain it. All you needed was for people to get out of the way so you could finally get started.

And in the years that followed, some things turned out just as you planned. Other times, life happened. You got dinged up and you healed. You made friends and lost them. You bounced a few checks.

You waded through, disoriented, after realizing you weren't going to get everything you wanted, or after learning that thing you'd been working so hard for - you didn't want it after all.

You think of all that as you sit in the bleachers, fanning yourself with a commencement program, listening to someone recite the names of hundreds of graduates, most of them strangers. You think of how simple everything seemed when you were in their place.

And when you manage to corner a recent graduate, even as you open your mouth to speak, you know it's not really them you're talking to. Only now, with luck, you're old enough, smart enough to listen:

Try everything.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

These are the best years of your life.

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