Once upon a time, there was a girl.
A smart, sometimes funny, always awkward yet cleverly attractive teenage girl. A girl with big aspirations that she kept tucked inside of her like a ship trapped within a glass bottle. A girl under glass, a curious cat that had a knack for pretending to be a star but much more preferred playing the role of an observer. And being an observer has taught her more than any classroom ever could.
Wandering through the halls at Douglas High School is nothing special, nothing that you couldn't find in a well-scripted teenage drama, in the inside flap of an album sleeve of some notorious teenage band, in the last few pages of a worn-out teenage composition journal.
High school is one big mess, one big expanding rubber band ball of cliché after cliché, all waiting to snap into something original. It seems like everyone has all of the same moments. But each moment has it's own specific seconds that make a moment different for each person.
All the boys and girls in the hallways, entangled in one another's lives, entwined in their secrets and friendships and similar desires, engulfed in their numerous heavy textbooks and procrastinated homework assignments. We're all so different but we can't deny the similarities that pull us, sometimes reluctantly, together. A magnetism that we cannot deny and will rediscover throughout our lives.
We are in a war far less political than what we can see. Where is this line between "individualism" and "unity?" If we don't stick together, we all just fall apart. But if we cling to one another, we can never learn how to fall without scraping our knees.
Once upon a time, there was a girl. It is no secret that I am this girl, and that I stand for everyone sitting here before me. Even those with whom I have not been acquainted, even those who's likings differ in music, books, movies, politics, even those who don't like me and have whispered infidelities behind my back.
We all stand for that constant search for a natural high. We all want to do whatever it takes to reach our goals. And that in itself brings us closer than any superficial similarity could.
Tonight, we are one. We are no longer enemies or strangers, but we are united in our pursuit to finally finish, and put the past behind us, and begin pushing forward.
We are the Douglas High School graduating class of 2006, and it feels really good to say that.
Now, we can start dreaming and doing with a clear conscience and no matter how anyone may protest, there is no one here tonight who does not have a dream. The hope to have a dream is a dream in itself.
Everyone made it here for a reason. Even if we flew here by flying colors or crawled by the skin of our teeth, we made it. And as of this moment, that means everything.
We all have a future that thrives in existentialism. We can be the examples of "the road less traveled." We can make a difference, we can change the world. Or we cannot.
But we have the choice to, and that can make all the difference.
Life is not a fairytale. There may not be a happy ending. There may not be an ending at all. But once upon a time, there was a girl who simply just wanted to tell her story.
So here's to the future fairytales of the class of 2006.
n Ashley Noel Hennefer is a 2006 graduate of Douglas High School who delivered this address to her class on June 16. No one will ever be able to take that away from her.
